Please help us to save 4 year old Masha Wergejtchik from cancer!

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Her tragic situation

Masha is a 4 year-old little girl from Belarus. Her birthday falls on June 29th and this year Masha was really looking forward to blowing out 4 candles on her birthday cake. Unfortunately on this very day she was diagnosed with a horrible disease ‘Abdominal Neuroblastoma, stage 4, high risk’. She was already too sick to enjoy her cake or blow out the candles.

Can Masha’s condition be treated?

Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer which only affects children. In Masha’s case the cancer has already spread to her bone marrow, but it has not yet affected her bones, meaning there is still a great chance of recovery.. This is not just a futile hope of the parents. World-renowned oncologist Prof. Dr. med Rupert Handgretinger, specialising in Masha’s condition, has been consulted and confirms that her condition is treatable. We are hoping to collect enough funding for Masha’s treatment to be undertaken by this doctor at the University Children’s Hospital in Tübingen, Germany. This doctor, his team and those who he has trained have an excellent record in treating the condition. We are also gathering Masha’s medical reports since she was a baby, as requested by the doctor, to translate and send to him for analysis. We could then expect a specific treatment plan and an exact quotation.

What can we do to help?

€50000 has already been collected, but we need to raise another €22900 for the operation and chemotherapy and in a few months she will need another €162000 for stem cell transplantation. The treatment would be more effective in Germany and she would have better chances than in her home country, Belarus.

  • Everyone can help by making a donation. Various payment methods have been setup -Easypay, Webmoney and Paypal. You only need a credit card or bank card to be able to donate using one of the PayPal “Donate” buttons on this site.
     
  • Everyone can help by spreading the word. Use the “Share” buttons on this site to inform your friends and colleagues via social networks and by email, and update your instant messenger status with “save-masha.org”.

Masha photos since her “babyhood”

At the moment Masha and her mother are in hospital near Minsk, where Masha has received a second round of chemotherapy, and is about to start the third. Masha’s mother had to stop working in order to look after her sick little girl. Her farther works for the Belorussian police force and was really counting on the help of his employer. Unfortunately, he has not received any, and they have another child who also costs money to look after. Masha’s parents are asking all compassionate people to help them in collecting funds for Masha’s treatment. 

“Any donation, any amount will help us. Help is never small”  ­- says Yuri, Masha’s farther.

“It is so scary when you cannot help your own child. But I cannot live and simply wait and hope. I need to do everything I can to save my daughter. My little girl can be cured, but only if people from all over the world will help and support us.”

“We are asking, begging you not to be indifferent to this horrible tragedy! Please help our little Masha to enjoy the sunshine again….”

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS AND WARM HEART!

If you wish to contact me, please direct your emails to info@save-masha.org
For those of you who speak or understand Russian, there is another web site being maintained by Masha’s family with updates and relevant documents: http://222120.by/

News from Germany 02/12/2011

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4 year old little Masha still hopes for 50 000 EUR for a life-saving stem cell transplant.

After recovering from her operation, Masha was discharged for about 10 days. During this time, they stayed with their relatives approximately 80km from the hospital. Masha was enjoying her time away from the hospital, discovering new foreign food and playgrounds. She was still very weak, but she tried her best. She also underwent one round of chemotherapy in Germany, and took it much better than her previous chemotherpy in Belarus. However, she was still very weak, so they had to stay in hospital longer than expected. Also, the German doctors decided that they need to start harvesting stem cells from Masha. These will later be transplanted back into Masha’s body following an additional round of chemotherapy. Unfortunately despite 2 attempts, they have not yet managed to collect enough cells, and the procedure will now need to be repeated after the next round of chemotherapy. Masha also had a scintigraphy which showed distant metastases in her bones. The German doctors say that this was to be expected. We did not know about it previously, as there had been no such sensitive test available in Belarus to provide that level of detail. The doctors suggested that apart from the transplant, she may also require MIBG treatment, but it has yet to be decided. If she does require it, it will involve additional costs above and beyond original estimates. At the moment the family is still lacking approximately 50000 EUR for the transplant, so we are still campaigning. The donations continue to come, but not as frequently as little Masha will need if we are to cover the funding.

Thank you to all people who have enquired with us for updates, and also those who have donated since our last update, all names and amounts detailed here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjZ2ERXuxxTndHJRQlIzLVJRWG9WYWI5R0N1VXlBRFE&hl=en_US#gid=0

We will try to again provide updates on a more frequent basis.

News from Germany 06/10/2011

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The operation was successful and Professor Fuchs who operated on Masha managed to remove 100% of the tumour. Unfortunately 2 days later there was some internal bleeding and Masha had to undergo an additional surgery. It went without major complications. Masha spent 4 days in total in intensive care. Luckily her mother was allowed to be with her, albeit spending 4 nights sleeping on a chair!

Now Masha is in a surgical ward. Although the doctors are very happy with her recovery, she still has a low grade fever and some blood pressure issues. The nurses insist that she should try to eat and drink a little more, but she is a stubborn little girl and no tricks from her mother will make her eat or drink when she doesn’t feel like it. She is watching cartoons and still has to spend every day in bed.

We are still waiting for the results of the analysis of the tumour, and will update when we know more.

We are looking forward to a weekend when we can go and take Masha and her mother out of the hospital for some time.

Thank you for your ongoing support, enquiries as to her progress and well wishes.

Masha’s Operation

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Masha had an operation at 07:30 CET today, lasting 8 hours.
She is now in intensive care for close monitoring of her recovery from the procedure.

The early signs are positive, but we’ll allow some time before we update further, and with more details.
Thanks to everyone for their supportive words and wishes via email, IM, Google+, Linkedin and Facebook!

Arrival

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On Thursday 22 September, Masha flew to Germany with her parents.
The tickets for the entire family were paid for using the funds collected from this web site -thank you again to everyone for the generosity. Natasha flew from Minsk with the family, but she funded her own ticket (-:

In Frankfurt the family was met by our friend, Adela N, who drove all of us to Tuebingen. Thank you very much for that, Adela. Winnie the Pooh which Adela brought for Masha quickly became Masha’s best friend, kept closely by her side during scans and blood tests etc.

As soon as Masha arrived at the hospital she inspected and approved the toys and the playroom (!) but she could not enjoy them for too long. On the first day she underwent CT scans and blood tests. Masha became very upset when she saw the syringes, as she realised that she was back in hospital again.

On Friday Masha had an MRI scan under general anesthetic. We did not have the chance to speak with the doctors because Professor Fuchs who will perform the surgery was not at the hospital.
On Monday we will find out not only when the surgery will happen, but also if there are any changes in Masha’s condition after the three rounds of chemotherapy. We very much hope that the chemotherapy will be successful.

Fundraising diary – Wednesday 7 September

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Google Translation into:

During the last 2 days we have received 4 donations totaling approximately €200, bringing the total raised specifically through this site to €1,825.30.

It is important to mention at this time, that Paypal also charge a commission fee to process each payment. Consequently, when €200 is donated, we typically receive approximately €192 for Masha, or when €20 is donated we may receive €19 of this. All donations have been mentioned in this dedicated page which we will keep updated during the coming weeks: http://save-masha.org/our-thanks-to

577 unique visitors have visited the site until now (+30 during the last 2 days), from 35 different countries (+3). 76 of these visitors clicked on our mentions on Facebook walls, 46 were from Google search results, and 19 clicked on our instant messenger status “save-masha.org”. We welcome others to adopt this status to spread visibility. Also of note is that 41% of visitors are still returning to check on the latest progress.

Thank you -we must keep going!

Big News €170 000 now raised

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We have 2 very significant news items to update everyone with:

  1. Graham’s employer appears willing to match up to $6000 (€4250) of whatever he donates, so if he donates €4250 we could actually convert that to €8500. Great news!
  2. Even more significant was the news that a Belarusian football club FC BATE Borisov has dedicated €100 000 to help Masha! To all people who follow Masha’s appeal closely, I will write this to emphasise: ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS!
The revised total required for tumour removal, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant is approximately €235 000. The current total raised is approximately €170 000, and this is enough for Masha to travel to Germany and start treatment, but we must still help to raise the remaining €65 000.
At this moment Masha is undergoing a third round of chemotherapy and, once she has recovered, hopefully by the end of the month, she will be able to travel to Germany for treatment. We are currently working on the practical aspects of the trip such as visa and flights. Masha’s mother will stay with her in Germany while her father will stay in Belarus to continue working.

Fundraising diary – Monday 5 September

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Google Translation into:

The last week was a great week for fundraising, with a total of €440 received through this web site from Natalia M, Pavel B, Katia B, Maarten L, and Aaron N. and his family. This takes the total which we have raised together with friends and family to €1625, so approximately 25% of that during the last week alone. It can be difficult to keep momentum, attention and interest after the first few weeks, so we are delighted with this. We value all donations of all amounts. Everyone gives as much as they can afford, and their gesture is cherished. However, since we are trying to reach a big target, we do draw attention to the very generous donations by Katia B. and Aaron N, of €200 and €150 respectively. Aaron is a former colleague of Graham, and we suspect that Katia, Natalia, Pavel and Maarten learned about the appeal through the Russian expat forum http://russian-belgium.be.

Graham has also been contacted by Linda and Geoff A. for whom he has provided domain name and web hosting services. Rather than receive payment for that, a donation will be made to save-masha.org

Combining €1625 with at least €870 from Klim and colleagues, and we have a total of €2495 raised by this web site during approximately 1 month of existence.

547 unique visitors have visited the site until now, from 32 different countries. We know that some of them see our instant messenger status “save-masha.org” and click on this. We welcome others to adopt this status to spread visibility. Also of note is that 41% of visitors return to check on the latest progress.

Thank you -we must keep going!

Fundraising diary – Thursday 25 August

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Google Translation into:

Today we received £150 (€170) EUR from Roy and Alison F. of Irby, Merseyside -Graham’s extended family. Roy kindly offered to make a donation in return for Graham managing some web hosting for him but this amount is overwhelmingly generous and far outweighs any reciprocation through web hosting. Roy, Alison, a big “thank you”!

Graham added €70 to this himself, so we added €240 today and passed €1200 through this web site, and €2070 when combined with donations from Klim and colleagues.

Fundraising diary – Wednesday 24 August

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Google Translation into:

Today we received 25 EUR from Graham’s colleague Andrei G. who saw the appeal on Google+ and then pledged this very kind donation. Thank you Andrei -this took the efforts related to Natasha and Graham’s appeal (this web site) to €965. We add to this at least €865 raised by Klim and his colleagues in Minsk, and we’re at €1830.

€1830 is a significant amount but actually quite a small proportion compared to the overall total. However, this is not a bad thing in any way -we are delighted to be “outstripped” by Masha’s parents back in Belarus. At the end of the day, we are just trying to hit a target, as fast as possible for Masha’s sake. During this appeal, we personally have drawn 3 conclusions along the way:
1) It is very difficult to persuade people who do not know us personally that this is a legitimate cause. This is understandable but a sad shame. However, we can confirm that several people who do not know us personally have still be trusting and made donations -again, we thank them.
2) Numerous friends, colleagues and former colleagues whom we have directly contacted with personal explanations, requests, and appeals for their help have viewed the site and yet still not made a donation. Given their links to us, we’ve been disappointed by this.
3) The friends, colleagues and former colleagues who have indeed made donations have given amounts which are far more generous than we could have hoped for. Whether it has been €25 or €200, we have been overwhelmed by the kindness of those who have donated.

In addition, we must look back and thank Marina K. from Belgium who recommended the best clinic in Germany to treat Masha’s condition. This gave us a focus and allowed our friends Andreas and Adela N. to directly contact the clinic and gain clarity on costs and next steps. It attached a true target to the appeal. Marina also placed us in contact with a Russian charitable foundation who are being very helpful.

There have been 449 unique visitors to this site since we started on Friday 5 August, (+51 on Monday 21 August). This was helped by Natasha’s posting on Russian expat forums in Belgium and Ireland.