Please Help Bring Papa Home

There are fewer emotions worse than seeing your father bedridden, mute, sometimes unconscious, and confused.

My father, Nicolai Tchertkoff, is currently stranded in Czerniakwski hospital in Warsaw, Poland. He suffered several maladies and desperately needs to be transported to France for treatment and to be surrounded by family and friends. His lower spine is severed. Miraculously, he is still able to move his feet and toes, but he cannot sit up or walk. In addition to this condition, when he was in a Nursing Home awaiting his flight home to New York, he became very hyperglycemic and delusional. After being transferred to the nearest hospital he was diagnosed with severe pneumonia, a mild stroke and a heart attack. Upon closer observation, his cardiologist noticed that his heart suffers from regurgitation, which can be fatal.

Treatment needed includes heart surgery, spinal surgery and rehabilitation.

Currently he is in Poland alone. My father needs help to get back to France where he can get treatment with family and friends surrounding him. After speaking with a medical transportation company in Warsaw named Air Med Escort, they would essentially both fly him to Paris and transport him by ambulance to Lesna Monastery in Provemont, France where he was residing for the last five years. With the Igumena’s blessing, they will welcome him and send for a French Ambulance to transport him to the proper hospital for treatment.

The cost of the flight and ambulance is $33,500. This includes all the machines, stretchers, supports, medicines and oxygen supply; as well as a doctor and a team of nurses to look after his vitals. He is currently in the hospital and lying there for almost three weeks. His cardiologist is now getting ready to discharge him on Monday and wants to transfer to a Nursing Home without having undergone any of the necessary surgeries. After asking the doctor how long he would think he’d stay there he responded, “I don’t know.” We still haven’t seen my father’s hospital bill.

My father should not have to face being bedridden in a Nursing Home alone that won’t treat him. In France, he has a team of family and friends that are willing to help and support him.

We do not have the money we need to properly transport him. Please, first and foremost, remember Nicolai in your prayers. Secondly, if there is anything you can give to support his trek back home for treatment, he and the family would be profoundly and eternally grateful.

Thank you all for your prayers, love and support! My father is resilient and is fighting as hard as he can. And he currently needs help in getting back to where he belongs.

Our deepest thanks!