Artur desperately needs the surgery. If his thighbone stricken with cancer cells is not replaced by a plastic endoprosthesis, it will sooner or later lead to metastases in all vital parts of his body. And then Artur would have much more to lose than his karate lessons.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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For Will to Win
// Ten-year-old boy needs one million rubles for endoprosthesis
Artur Eremushkin, a 10-year-old boy from Astrakhan, is in the Moscow Oncology Center’s department for children now. He has not yet realized that he is to stay here for about a year, that he is to undergo endoprosthesis transplantation to replace his cancer-stricken thighbone. Desperately shy of journalists, he is telling about his friends and karate lessons which he by no means wants to stop taking. And that isn’t a dream, it is real -- but only if the Eremushkins find one million rubles, an unreal sum for the family, to pay for the transplantation.
When photographer and I enter the ward of the oncology center’s department for children where 10-year-old Artur Eremushkin is now staying, he, a thin and agile boy, immediately stops doing whatever he was busy with, sits still on his bed, and stares into one point on the wall. Fixedly. It is the case when someone’s face clearly reads: “I’m very embarrassed”. If he could, he probably would not take off his protective antibacterial mask. Certainly, Artur was warned that journalists would come, ask questions and take pictures. Yet, it is one thing to consider it as some event in the future -- unpleasant but tolerable, and quite another thing when the journalists have already come and there is no escape.
“How do you feel, how is your stay here?” I ask simply to begin our conversation.
Artur keeps silence.
“He feels well now. We’ve arrived recently, and are now adjusting here,” replies the boy’s mother Tatiana.
Artur, without taking his eyes off the wall, nods in agreement. He’s got nothing to add or object to.
“Relax, Artur, it’s gonna be all right! We won’t even make injections to you!” I smile to the boy.
He gives a short smile in response, and turns away again. He is not very confident that it’s going to be all right. Unfortunately, he has grounds to think so.
Tatiana tells me that Artur hit his hip while playing outside in spring. Or, perhaps, someone hit him. There is no point in guessing: the boy would not acknowledge it just out of pride. The leg hurt for a long time, but then it got better. In late summer, the Eremushkins went on vacation from their native city of Astrakhan to South Ural. The pain reappeared there, and grew stronger, so that the family had to urgently return home.
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For those who are encountering the Russian Aid Fund for the first time
The Russian Aid Fund was founded in 1996 to assistant the authors of desperate letters sent to Kommersant. We verify the letters with the help of local authorities, then publish the letters in Kommersant, Domovoi magazine and on the site www.rusfond.ru. If you decide to help, you will receive the banking details of the authors of the letters, and the rest is up to you. You just help you help. This approach has been popular with our readers. More than $8.4 million has been collected. We also organize relief efforts during national catastrophes, for 53 families of the miners who died in the Zyryanovskaya Mine in Kuzbass, 57 families of the policemen who burned to death in Samara, 153 families of the victims of explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk, 118 families of the sailors who died on the submarine Kursk, 52 families of the hostages who died in the seizure of the performance of Nord Ost, 39 families of those who died in the Moscow Metro on February 6, 2004, 100 families who suffered losses in Beslan. The Fund is the winner of the Silver Archer award.
The Russian Aid Fund
Address: P.O. Box 50, 125252 Moscow, Russia
www.rusfond.ru
e-mail: rfp@kommersant.ru
Telephone: +7 (095) 943-9135
Telephone/fax: +7 (095) 158-6904
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When they returned, they took Artur to have X-ray in a local hospital. They were lucky with the doctor. He immediately suspected it was not a common injury, and directed the boy to the city’s oncology center. Artur was diagnosed with Ewing’s tumor of right thighbone and directed to the oncology center in Moscow.
Artur has been in Moscow since September. Our conversation has begun little by little. We talk about his friends and favorite computer games, about his 1-year-old niece Stacy and how he likes playing with her. It turns out the boy seriously goes in for karate, and has already won the yellow belt and a prize “for will to win” at a competition. The more we talk, the better I see that Artur does not yet realize how grave his illness is.
He is over his second chemo, and he tries not to think there will be many more of them. But there will be many more chemos. He speaks of his school friends in Astrakhan as if he is going to see them in a month. The thought that he’ll have to stay for at least a year in the oncology center is beyond his understanding yet. It is a thought too scary for the boy.
Artur desperately needs the surgery. If his thighbone stricken with cancer cells is not replaced by a plastic endoprosthesis, it will sooner or later lead to metastases in all vital parts of his body. And then Artur would have much more to lose than his karate lessons. Meanwhile, the boy is very upset about missing them now.
“It’ll be over, and I’ll return then. I’m not going to stop taking karate lessons. And my friends are waiting for me,” says Artur.
“Looks like you’ve got much to discuss with them,” I say.
Artur is becoming shy again.
“Come on, say: sure. Although Artur mostly discusses computer games,” Tatiana replies instead of her son again.
The boy’s mother is well aware that her son’s situation is grave, and that the surgery is inevitable. And that the Eremushkins do not have the money to pay for it. Tatiana works as a common state official in Astrakhan, and that isn’t a type of work making it possible to pay one million rubles (that is the cost of a foreign-made endoprosthesis).
So far, the Eremushkins have been encouraged by doctors only. The doctors say it was great luck that the disease was detected in its early stage. The boy now has all chances to become healthy and return to normal lifestyle. However, that one million rubles stands between Artur’s disease and recovery.
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713,550 rubles needed to save Artur Eremushkin
Dr. Nadezhda Ivanova, head of the locomotor apparatus’ cancer department at the R&D institute for children’s oncology and hematology of the Russian Scientific Oncology Center named after N.N. Blokhin, said that Artur Eremushkin has Ewing’s tumor of right thighbone. The boy has been ill since May 2007, his hip swelled up in August, and oncologists in Astrakhan sent the boy to Moscow, “with a correct diagnosis”. Artur was hospitalized there on September 17, and immediately underwent intensive chemotherapy. Two chemo courses are already over, and they “expressed positive dynamics”. The boy also underwent X-ray therapy.
Dr. Ivanova estimated that “the tumor has lessened by 80 percent, which is a good sign”. The boy is now ready to undergo “organ-saving surgery” to save his leg. His knee joint will be replaced by a non-invasive U.S.-made endoprosthesis. Non-invasive -- means the boy will not need further surgeries to extend the prosthesis to keep up with his growth. Instead, doctors will be extending the prosthesis by means of electromagnetic field, every six months, without hospitalizing the boy every time. The technology is well-tested, and the growing prosthesis has proven effective. It is made individually for each patient. It takes one month to produce it. After the transplantation, Artur is to undergo two more courses of high-doze chemotherapy, “to fixate the results of the treatment”, as Dr. Ivanova said.
Dear friends! The prosthesis for Artur costs 1.08 million rubles. Unfortunately, the Eremushkins do not have the sum and are unable to raise it. So, Artur’s mother Tatiana Eremushkina asked the Russian Aid Fund to help. Our permanent partner Kapital investment group will donate $15,000 (please see www.rusfond.ru for more information). Thus, the boy needs 713,550 rubles more. You can help by transferring money to IKBA company (prosthesis supplier in Moscow) or to Tatiana Eremushkina’s account in Sberbank. Any donations will be highly appreciated. The fund has all necessary banking details.
Expert group of the Russian Aid Fund
Andrei Kozenko
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 23, 2007
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