Little Boy of Purple Color
// Vanya Krugov needs heart surgery
Vanya is one year old. He has a severe heart disease. When the baby was two months old, doctors said that his parents should simply wait for his death, and that they wouldn’t have to wait long. But the parents decided not to wait. Via the Internet, they found a clinic in Germany. They made debts and raised enough money for the first stage of a heart surgery. Now their little boy needs the surgery’s second stage, but they don’t have the money for it.
Adults cannot walk like little children. Adults walk using their legs and feet. Children walk using their entire body. When Vanya Krugov walks from room to room, he swings his arms in time with his steps, smiles broadly to everyone he meets, murmurs some inarticulate words with every step. Anyone feels happy when watching a little child walk. And anyone feels ill at ease when seeing a 1.5-year-old boy suffering of breathlessness after walking a small distance, like an old man who went up to fifth floor.
“After the surgery’s first stage, panting became less. And he is no longer of dark blue color,” said Olya, Vanya’s mother.
She said passers-by would often take her son for a little Negro boy, before the surgery. “Gee! Such a white girl has a black son!” The purple color of Vanya’s face and hands seemed black to inconsiderate people on the street.
Olya said Vanya’s lips were blue ever since his birth. On their second day in maternity hospital, their pediatrician said the boy had heart murmurs and suspected cardiac defect. However, Olya did not become afraid then. She knew many people who lived with heart murmurs and cardiac defect, but they led quite normal lives.
Yet, Olya became afraid when two-month old Vanya was put to the Balashikha Hospital’s intensive care, and the doctor said the baby would die. Doctors did not let Olya visit her son; they just showed him to her, once in a while. And he was of purple color. He had needles stuck into his head, because drip bulbs for babies are inserted into head veins, and not into arms. That is when Olya became really afraid. Every day, when she came to the hospital and the baby was brought in for a couple of minutes with those needles in his head, the doctor would say that Vanya had a heart attack at night, that the Bakulev Cardiovascular Surgery Center in Moscow would not take him, that Olya should probably take her son home because it doesn’t matter where to wait for death, in hospital or at home.
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We are sitting on a couch in the living room. Having recovered his breath a little, Vanya grabs a small electric dog, which shines with colored light bulbs and barks a cheerful song if pressed on its nose. Vanya does not have enough strength to press the dog’s nose with his forefinger. He can do it with his thumb only. So he presses it, the dog sings, and Vanya starts dancing with the dog in his hands. But he stops in a minute, breathless. He is panting for a while, pressing the dog to his chest, which makes the dog seem to be breathless as well.
Taking the boy to sit on her lap, Olya says that she took him to the Bakulev Center anyway. While being prepared for the surgery, Vanya got ill with an enteric infection, and was taken to toxico-reanimation instead of the surgery room. The parents were again not allowed to see Vanya. They had to stand by the door and pray for their child to survive.
Having recovered his breath a little, Vanya slides off Olya’s lap and walks across the living room towards a big yellow toy car. He puts the dog into the car, presses the dog’s nose and makes the car go. The car is driving, the dog inside is barking its cheerful song, and Vanya is smiling from ear to ear. He pants heavily. As if in sympathy for the child, the car stops, and the dog stops singing.
“We found a clinic, via the Internet,” says Olya. “It is one of the best cardiologic clinics in the world. We were met in the airport in Berlin; we were taken to the clinic. All doctors there are so affable and nurses are so attentive, that I could leave Vanya for their care and have some sleep. There is one nurse for each child in that clinic.”
Olya says that Vanya had the surgery’s first stage, called Glenn [Glenn anastomosis], on May 17, and now needs the second stage, called Fontan [Fontan operation]. Meanwhile, Vanya scattered his toys, walking around the room and throwing a ball, a plush cow, a toy cell phone, and a real cell phone.
“Oh! He took your phone!” exclaims Olya.
While talking, we did not notice that together with his toys Vanya also grabbed my cell phone, which was on the couch by my side.
“He is about to throw it! Vanya, don’t!” cries Olya.
She jumps up, runs to the boy, takes away my cell phone, and gives him his toy phone, so that he doesn’t get upset. Apparently, Olya does not know how lucky they are. Without Glenn, the child wouldn’t be running around, throwing toys, playing with the singing dog. Without Glenn, his cheeks would be purple, and not pink like now.
Having scattered all his toys, Vanya is satisfied and climbs up the couch. He is panting heavily. If his parents raise enough money for Fontan surgery, he will breathe normally.
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933,612 rubles needed to save one-year-old Vanya Krugov
“Vanya has severe cardiac defect: just one ventricle, transposition of main arteries, double discharge of blood vessels from the right ventricle, multiple defects of ventricular septum, displasia of mitral valve. It is the so-called dark-blue heart disease,” said Vanya’s doctor Stanislav Ovrutsky, cardiologist of the Berlin Cardio Center. Vanya first arrived to Berlin with intense cyanosis, he was “as dark-blue as an eggplant”, he had little weight, heavy panting; only his right ventricle functions and the left one is not developed. Blood circulation is defective: venous blood mixes with arterial blood; the blood does not get saturated with oxygen, and the heart carries double load.
During the first surgery, Berlin doctors unloaded the heart by connecting the superior vena cava and the pulmonary artery. Now the heart pumps 1.5 of the blood amount, and the blood gets saturated with oxygen by 85 percent. It is not enough: the boy still has cyanosis and breathlessness.
The second surgery will help completely restore blood circulation, will increase blood’s saturation with oxygen, and will decrease pressure on the heart. “The prognosis is quite favorable. Vanya will no longer have cyanosis and panting. He’ll start gaining normal weight and growing. He’ll go to school, and he won’t be very different from his peers. Certainly, there will be some physical exercise restrictions for Vanya,” said Dr. Ovrutsky.
The second surgery in Berlin will cost ˆ33,840. As always, our constant partner Ingosstrakh company will contribute $11,500. So, Vanya needs 933,612 rubles more. Unfortunately, the German clinic can accept only the entire sum at once. Such donations are very rare in our practice. So, you can help by transferring money to Vanya’s mother Olga Sergeevna Krugova’s account in Sberbank. Companies can transfer donations for Vanya to the account of the Pomosh charity fund (established by Kommersant Publishing House and Lev Ambinder). From here, your contributions will be immediately transferred to Olga Krugova. The fund has all banking details.
Expert group of the Russian Aid Fund
Valery Panyushkin, specially for the Russian Aid Fund
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 07, 2007
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