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Help me save my niece IRL


MrsHamster

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 Hello everyone, 

 

I don't know if some of you remember me, I wasn't gone for that long, but I'm MrsHamster, long standing member of this amazing community, and today I need your help IRL, as a person, not a player. 

 

I have a niece in Russia named Viktoria, only 8 years old, and she was recently diagnosed with Syringomyelia, a rare development of a fluid-filled cyst (syrinx) within her spinal cord. Over time, the cyst can enlarge, damaging her spinal cord and causing pain, weakness, and stiffness, among other symptoms. Currently, the cyst prevents her right leg from growing and weakens her right side of the body. She walked on her tip toes short distances until last week, where she couldn't walk anymore and received a wheelchair. Soon, she won't be able to use it at all. Since she is growing now, the risk for further complications is growing too, which means we have to treat her as soon as possible before it's too late. 

 

The experts in Russia said the condition is rare (only 9 other cases in Russia) and they do not have the experience to treat it. The only solution is to undergo treatment and surgery in Israel. After a consultation with a pediatric neurosurgeon, Professor Jonathan Roth, it has been recommended to bring Victoria to Israel and treat her here, as soon as possible, in the tourist clinic at Tel Aviv Medical Center (Ichilov). The entire treatment, including the surgery, will cost about 40,000$. She will arrive on February 16th and start treatment there, but we can't even dream to afford it. 

 

This is such a big and amazing community, I saw how much good we can do together over the years. The charity events, the welcoming spirit, the way we come together as a community when one of us needs help. I'm hopeful that this time we can help the girl as well.

 

If you're skeptical, which I know in our times we all are regarding these things, I'll say that this post was approved by Nervous with all the documents checked. I wouldn't have risked my name here and my and my families' personal information just to pull a scam for a couple of bucks. I'm genuinely just trying to help my already struggling family to save my niece without absolutely crushing.  

 

Thank you for reading this far, and I hope that together we can help save a child's life. 

 

Edit (09/MAR/2022):

The campaign is over. I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone! Thanks to your and good people's amazing help we were actually able to collect the entire sum. Only the GTA community donated almost 4k USD which is significant. 

My sister and niece arrived to Israel on February 17th. It was a huge hassle involving a lot of Covid related bureaucracy, loss of baggage, complication of medical condition and just a long trip. Despite it all, they managed to arrive well and begin the medical examination.

So far the doctors are confused and curious. They never seen a case like that where the cyst in the spinal cord doesn't even explain the symptoms, no one knows why it's there and what causes the symptoms. We did a bunch of tests, including a genetic test, and now waiting for the results. If the test comes back negative, they'll perform and exploratory surgery to look inside and search for the cause. What we do know now is that the only way to recover and walk again is by another orthopedic surgery on her legs.

 

Edit (01/APR/2022):

The tests came back negative and the surgery took place yesterday. They performed an exploratory surgery to find the cause for her symptoms and found another cyst, that didn't show up on the MRI, that was pressing the spinal cord and was most likely the cause for everything. They removed it and she's slowly recovering now. Thank you all again, it wouldn't have been possible without your generosity. 

Here's Viktoria prior to the surgery, saying hello and thank you 🙂

2j3fhzK.png

 

Edit (08/07/2023)

It's been a year since the second surgery. She had another one here in Israel to fix the ligaments on both her legs to help her walk again. After a long year of therapy and recovery - Viktoria can walk again and no longer uses the wheelchair (unless for long distances)!!

She can actually walk again which is amazing. Many many thanks to all of you who helped! We will never forget this 🙂 

 

I'll keep you people updated!

 

 

Edited by MrsHamster
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MrsHamster gave up so much of her free time to our community as a staff member and was such a happy, positive force in our team. She has most likely helped many of you in her time as an Administrator. If you can spare even a small amount, it would add up immensely. Best of luck and prayers Viktoria, from all of us at GTA World.

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