Katya Mikhailova's stay in a clinic in Bergamo, Italy till August will cost ˆ40,000. Katya necessarily needs to stay: the risk of donor heart’s rejection is very high in the first year since transplantation. With each following year, the risk reduces in geometric progression.
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Right to Happy End
A year ago, 16-year-old Katya Mikhailova from Tomsk could hardly walk; she suffered of breathlessness and felt worse and worse with each day. Russian doctors were at a loss: heart transplantation of that degree of complexity is not performed in Russia. Owing to the money raised by our readers, one miracle has already happened: Italian doctors did the transplantation. Katya’s new heart got accepted by the body, and the girl felt much better. In fact, she revived. Katya necessarily needs to stay in the Italian clinic till August. Yet, her family does not have the means for it. Once again, Katya hopes only on you, dear friends. “I though I unlearned to laugh at all, but I’m laughing now,” says Margarita Mikhailovna, Katya’s mother. “In Tomsk, my daughter hardly looked like a 12-year-old, while in the last six months she grew up, and now she looks her true age, at last.”
We first wrote about Katya Mikhailova in February 2007. I met with her back then, and she was a tired-looking girl with sparkless and indifferent eyes. Tomsk’s Cardiologic Center diagnosed her with a very rare disease -- restrictive cardiomyopathy, or blood circulation deficiency. The girl’s heart was larger than normal, and functioned weakly. By the age of 15, Katya’s heart grew tired, and could stop forever at any moment. There are hardly 20 people with that disease in Russia.
Katya needed heart transplantation, but it could not be done in Russia, due to its complexity. Tomsk’s doctors arranged it with their colleagues from a clinic in Bergamo, Italy. Katya seemed to have no more hope that winter. With each day, it was harder and harder for her to get up, to walk. She suffered of breathlessness. “I’m very tired, you know. I’m tired of living like that!” she almost cried, while I sat with her and didn’t know what to say. “If I need the surgery – let it be the surgery! I wish it happens soon, I can’t go on like this,” she said in despair. However, she quickly collected herself: “I’m an optimist, and believe it will be all right.”
Thanks to you, dear readers, the ˆ46,000 needed for the surgery were raised nearly the same day when the article about Katya was published. Almost immediately, the girl and her mother flew to Italy. Due to the exceptional circumstances, their visas were issued just in one day. Then followed preparation for the surgery and donor search. It lasted till mid-summer. On July 11, new heart from a donor was transplanted to Katya. Italian doctors warned the girl has to stay with them for a year, to do control checks every two weeks: blood test, ultrasonic scanning, and cardiogram. Happy end, one would think.
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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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Yet, it is not so simple. The stay in the clinic covered by our readers is over. Several more months were paid for by the Tomsk Region’s administration. This year, Katya and her mother need to stay in Bergamo till August, but there is no one to pay for their stay any longer. The necessary stay costs ˆ40,000. Meanwhile, Katya cannot leave: the risk of donor heart’s rejection is very high in the first year since transplantation. With each following year, the risk reduces in geometric progression. In September, doctors twice suspected that the heart’s rejection had begun. Yet, the girl was lucky in September, and now she strongly needs to be lucky to finish the treatment.
Katya’s voice sounds happier now. We speak on the phone, and I feel that she is smiling there in Italy. “We live in Bergamo, in a small house near the clinic, we take walks,” reports Katya. “I also go to a special school for foreigners. I study Italian, geography, and algebra.” “So, how’s your Italian going?” I ask. “It’s going well, it’s actually quite easy to study here,” says Katya.
I’m listening to her, and I feel proud; I don’t even know why.
A year ago, it was an insoluble problem for her to walk up the stairs. Now, she exercises on fitness cycles twice a week. The surgery really saved Katya. “Her health state is now satisfactory,” said Katya’s doctor Vitaly Pak. “Our colleagues from Tomsk came here to study the methods of treatment and rehabilitation after the surgeries of that type. So, when Katya is back to Russia, she’ll be met by specially trained doctors. Yet, she needs to finish her Italian stage of treatment first. It is vitally important for the girl.”
Katya also tells me that her mother and she made friends with many other patients of their clinic, those who already underwent heart transplantation and those who just face it. “We met a man who came on a short visit here because he had had the surgery, back in 1991. He reassured us that everything will be all right now,” said Katya’s mother. “We too say the words of support to those who just face the surgery. You know, it is so important for them. We know for sure.”
Katya necessarily needs to stay in the Bergamo clinic till August. She is to undergo medical tests, control checks, more blood tests, and the therapy to which she is already used, that is everything she had to undergo in the last six months. The girl, who was strong enough to survive the transplantation, simply must have the right to full recovery and a true happy end.
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1,149,725 rubles more needed to save Katya Mikhailova
“Katya Mikhailova’s state of health is quite satisfactory now, but she necessarily needs to undergo regular (every two weeks) control checks of her heart, so as to prevent any possible risks. That is the obligatory condition of Italian doctors,” said Vitaly Pak, children’s cardio-surgeon of the Bergamo clinic. The risk that a body might reject a donor heart is extremely high in the first year since transplantation. The anniversary of Katya’s surgery is July 11, 2008. Then, in November, Katya will need to show up in the Italian clinic once again, which is required by the standard medical monitoring procedure. “However, that visit will be later, and now we urgently need to finance the rest of Katya’s current stay in Bergamo. The clinic’s administration is now in a quite difficult position. They certainly wish well to the girl, and do not want to send her back home without finishing the treatment,” said Dr. Pak.
The stay in Bergamo till August for Katya and her mother will cost ˆ40,000. It covers not only the planned control checks, accommodation and catering, but also the treatment of possible complications. The latter is very important as well. So far, all has been going well, but the Italian doctors believe it is necessary to secure Katya against risks. So, if all keeps going well, the surplus will cover the future November visit of the Mikhailovas to Bergamo.
As always, our permanent partner Ingosstrakh company will donate $11,500 [please see www.rusfond.ru for details]. So, Katya needs 1,149,725 rubles more. Dear friends, the Mikhailovas will be grateful for any aid, for each ruble.
The money can be transferred to Katya’s account in Tomsk’s Cardiologic Center. The Russian Aid Fund has all banking details.
Andrei Kozenko
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 15, 2008
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