“There's no choice any way,” Sasha Laktionov says seriously. “I have to be treated. I really want to get well. Really.”
Photo: Dmitry Lekay
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Matched for Survival
Sasha Laktionov's diagnosis is acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It is his second relapse. But Sasha ignores his diagnosis. The 15-year-old's life consists of motorcycles, computer games and his friends in the oncology unit of the Russian Clinic Pediatric Hospital. The progression of the leukemia has been stopped with chemotherapy, but it can only be overcome with a transplant of umbilical cord blood. A matching type has been found, but about ˆ40,000 are needed to complete the collection and deliver it to RCPH. Then Sasha's chances of survival will be 80 percent.
You also expect meetings like this to be scary. The words “children” and “oncology” are frightening together. But sitting here with me in the corridor of the hematology-oncology department of RCPH, Sasha is cheerful and vivacious, a completely normal kid. Only the mask he wears against microbes and his lack of hair from chemotherapy point to the seriousness of his problems. After we had been acquainted for two minutes, he pulls out his cell phone and shows me a picture of a black and green motorcycle, a racing model, I think.
“I put it together myself! I got an old Izh from Grandpa and reassembled it,” he said proudly. Then, with a tiny sigh, added, “Too bad I didn't get to tune it. I had to go into the hospital, and it's there waiting for me.”
“You assembled it by yourself?” I ask, thinking that I had to explain to this child that lying is bad, especially lying to journalists.
“Well, almost by myself,” he conceded. “My friends helped with the wiring. I'm not too good with electricity. But I did the rest: overhauled the engine, installed the brakes, painted it two in colors, added the chrome.”
Sasha Laktionov's first bout with leukemia was in 1997, when he had just started school in Stavropol Territory. His mother Nadezhda, an elementary school teacher, left her job and to look after just one pupil, her son. After a three-year remission, the disease recurred. Back in hospital, more chemotherapy. It looked as though Sasha was cured, but no. On the morning of January 1, 2007, Sasha developed a temperature, his joints ached, and his mother knew that it was no cold or flu…
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The Stavropol Health Ministry sent mother and son to Moscow, to RCPH. Here, the doctors said that chemotherapy alone won't be enough. Sasha needs a bone marrow transplant, and a donor had to be found. That proved to be no easy task. His mother and older sister did not match and no match was found in international bone marrow banks. The doctors suggested an umbilical cord blood transplant. That is the most modern treatment of pediatric leukemia.
That method is also more expensive. The search for and delivery of two units costs ˆ40,000. For Sasha's mother, who has worked her whole life as a schoolteacher in the village of Gorkovsky in Stavropol Territory, the sum is impossible. Therefore, your help is badly needed. The doctors say that, if the necessary samples are obtained, Sasha's chance of survival is 80 percent.
Preliminary blood samples have already been selected for Sasha. That was done before the Federal Customs Service banned the export of human biological samples from Russia. Blood is on the list of forbidden items, of course, but without a sample of the patient's blood, it is impossible to find a donor match. Every year, this department alone seeks donors abroad for at least ten children. There are no databases in Russia for it. A delay or, worse, a mismatch of bone marrow or umbilical cord blood means certain death for the child.
So Sasha was lucky. But he has other worries. “It okay in the hospital, I guess,” he says. “I've gotten used to it in six months. Of course, the computer's not too good. You can play solitaire, but car races don't load. And there aren't many guys my age – no one to play ping pong with.”
“Yeah, you're pretty well set up here,” I agree, trying to be cheerful.
“There's no choice any way,” he says seriously. “I have to be treated. I really want to get well. Really.”
His mother is optimistic too. “It's been like living on a volcano for ten years,” she says. “I've gotten used to everything but I never stopped believing we'd recover.”
“Mom, stop,” Sasha says. “How many times have I told you not to be afraid. Look at me. I'm not afraid.” He turns to me. “I'm like that. Nothing scares me.”
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785,000 rubles are needed to save Sasha
Head of the hematology-oncology department of the Russian Clinical Pediatric Hospital Natalia Myakova says that Sasha Laktionov has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. “It's a type of leukemia that never recurs,” she says. But Sasha was terribly unlucky. The disease returned to him twice. And no bone marrow donor could be found for him in the world database.
A match was made for umbilical cord blood though. Dr. Myakova said, “Sasha is already a big guy. He will need a transplant of two units of umbilical cord blood.” Four candidate donors have been found, two in France, one on the United States and one in Taiwan. “Umbilical cord blood is very expensive for transplantation,” Myakova adds. “That mainly due to the cost to storing the material.”
The Morsch Fund has opened two accounts for the Laktionovs for ˆ15,000 each. The family does not have that much money, and here they'll never earn it either. Thus Sasha's life depends on finding 1,044,000 rubles. As always, our permanent partner the Capital Investment Group is contributing $10,000. Another 785,000 rubles are needed. It's a serious sum, dear friends, especially during vacation season, but every rubles and will be received with gratitude.
Money can be transferred to the Morsch Fund (no less than ˆ5000, at the request of the fund) or to the special bank account we have opened for Sasha's mother Nadezhda Petrovna Laktionova.
The banking details are available from the Russian Aid Fund.
The expert group of the Russian Aid Fund
Andrey Kozenko
All the Article in Russian as of June 06, 2007
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