Doctors hoped that her brother Dima would become a donor for Liza, but he didn’t suit. And the girl can’t do without transplantation. To cure Liza, healthy marrow is needed. The activation of the donor and the medicine for the transplantation cost ˆ35.000.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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Liza Wants to Give You Sweets
// A seven-year-old girl needs bone marrow transplantation
Liza Titkova, 7 has had enough of bad luck and good luck. Leucosis has turned Liza into a shadow. Within a year she had to undergo six courses of chemotherapy, and now she’s alive. She’s lucky: Doctors said relapse was probable, but they were mistaken. The entire turmor disappeared. In Germany a marrow donor was found for her, which is good luck again. But Liza’s parents lack ˆ35.000 for the transplantation, and the girl is one step away from recovery.
I have never seen that kind of face-control. Imagine, I come into a flat, take a seat, and Liza comes up to me with a magnifier and starts examining me slowly and thoroughly. And only after she finishes her examination and understands that she can deal with me, Liza asks whether she may dance. Without waiting for me to nod at least, the girl begins dancing.
A year ago doctors doubted whether this little girl from Kaluga was able to speak and express her emotions. She was her own shadow.
Actually, it’s Liza’s holiday now, and she’s having fun. It’s the first time in half a year that she’s back home. Doctors with the Russian children’s clinical hospital let Liza and her mother stay at home for a few days. So, Liza rushes about the flat trying to grip as many toys as she can, and her elder brother Dima, as well. She knocks Dima off his feet, and laughing, she begins kissing him in his cheeks. Dima feels embarrassed (at 11, you are not accustomed to show your feelings) but the boy appears pleased and happy. The Titkovs haven’t gathered together for a long time. Liza spent half a year in a hospital in Moscow, and before it – half a year in another oncology center.
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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.
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Address: P.O. Box 50, 125252 Moscow, Russia
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Ten minutes later I see that I’m unable to stop the chaos caused by Liza’s returning. You can only yield to Liza. So, we’re sitting on the floor, with a pile of small details of a constructor in front of us, and discussing what we are going to build. Liza insists on a tower, whereas Dima – on a military fortress. And I’m trying to convince them that we have enough details for both projects, and we only need to decide which of them will be the first. The parents shrug their shoulders.
Liza seems to get bored with the discussion.
“I’m going away!” she claims, and we have to follow her (what else can you do?). We go to another room, where Liza suggests that we admire articles she made of plasticine. She shows me a bee, a turtle, a rhino and a couple of unknown animals. The animals look real. I praise Liza, and she only waves her hand, which means that it’s a minor part of her talent.
Then we go to the kitchen, where Dima tells me that after Russia triumphed over the Netherlands the entire city of Kaluga celebrated the victory, and those taxi-drivers who had no Russian flags were ousted from the streets.
“He never takes me to his football matches, he’s a monster!” complains Liza, with a cunning smile.
“Elizabeth,” Dima replies, “you know perfectly well that you play rugby, rather than football.”
“But I scored a penalty to you!” Elizabeth retorts.
Dima casts a look at me as if he wanted to say that it was pure chance.
So, here we are in the children’s room again. Liza throws a blanket over a chair, which transforms into a stage of a puppet-show. Liza hides behind the chair and performs the Kolobok (a Russian fairy-tale). Her Kolobok succeeds in getting rid of everyone who tries to eat him, and at the same time he sings songs from cartoons. “Don’t eat me, I’ll sing a song to you,” says Kolobok to a teddy-bear, who falls as if dead. However, it hardly bothers Liza, and she keeps on.
“It’s not boring with you at all,” I admit when I finally have a chance to talk with Liza’s parents.
“To put it mildly, it’s not boring,” the parents sigh.
Liza’s mother, Lyuba, tells me that the never-stopping “tararam” in their house suddenly disappeared as the girl caught a cold and wouldn’t recover. After a blood test, everything got clear, and it was dreadful. After her first chemotherapy Liza seemed barely alive, but the next courses were better.
“She sang songs as she was under a dropper, volunteers came and listened to her, and she would pinch them,” Lyuba smiles.
Doctors with the Russian children’s clinical hospital hoped that her brother Dima would become a donor for Liza, but he didn’t suit. And the girl can’t do without transplantation. To cure Liza, healthy marrow is needed. Via the Morsch Foundation – a German database – they managed to find a donor in Europe, which is really good luck. But now ˆ35.000 is needed to activate the donor and provide the girl with the necessary medicine before the operation and after it.
I can see the poor furniture in the flat. Lyuba hasn’t worked for a long time – she’s been taking care of her daughter. And Liza’s father, a plumber, has been laid off, and now he takes up any job he’s offered in Kaluga. I’m aware that to this family, ˆ35.000 and ˆ3 mln are equally abstract sums. They just can’t imagine how much money it is.
I’m going to leave. It’s time I returned to Moscow, to the editorial office. And Liza rushes about the flat, reciting poems and demonstrating her dresses to me. Finally she runs away and comes back with a handful of sweets. She gives them to me.
“Thanks for coming,” Liza tells me, “I’m looking forward to meeting you again!”
Liza, thank you so much for your sweets!
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882.726 roubles is needed to rescue Liza Titkova, 7!
Mikhail Maschan from the Russian children’s clinical hospital says, “When Liza Titkova came to us from Kaluga, she already had a relapse of leucosis. The doctors from Kaluga had consulted us asking whether Liza would require bone marrow transplantation. At that time we thought the girl had a good chance to recover without transplantation, but unfortunately, her leucosis behaved a different way, and it came to relapse. Now Liza is at our hospital, she had to undergo chemotherapy, and we managed to achieve remission.”
So, now Liza doesn’t have even a trace of turmor.
Then “another good luck” followed. While Moscow’s specialists treated Liza, their German colleagues succeeded in finding a donor for her. Now the key thing is the transplantation. You can’t postpone it. Liza has a ward in the hospital, but ˆ10.000 is needed to pay to the Morsch Foundation for the activation of the donor. And then Liza will require medicine the clinic lacks. So, another 929.926 is needed.
As usual, our permanent partner, Ingosstrakh, donates 417.000 roubles (to find details, follow the link www.rusfond.ru). Another partner, charity fund “Podari Zhizn” (Grant a life) has paid the search of the donor (ˆ5.000). So, we need 882.726 to save Liza.
Dear friends! It’s summer now, many people go on holidays, and the volumes of the readers’ help have diminished. We appreciate every rouble you can give. The Morsch foundation receives money in euros. Donations in roubles can be transferred to the account of Liza’s mother, Lyubov Anatolyevna Titkova, or to the account of the “Pomoshch” (Relief) charity fund, whose founders are the Kommersant Publishing House and Lev Ambinder. You can get all the details with the fund.
Russian Aid Fund experts
Andrey Kozenko
All the Article in Russian as of July 04, 2008
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