Help Oliwia fight neuroblastoma
Don protégé
Even a Wonder Woman needs a little help. This Wonder Woman is my friend and colleague Ilona, who has been fighting for the life of her little daughter Oliwia for the past 6 years.
Ilona and Oliwia live in Warsaw, Poland, and I am trying to help them finance the expensive treatments Oliwia needs to continue living a normal life.
In 2010 Oliwia has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma in her kidney - a particularly nasty type of cancer that targets infants and children. You can read more about this terrible disease here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroblastoma.
This is Oliwia!
At the age of 4 she had a full cycle of chemo, surgery, radio therapy and a bone marrow transplant – a series of painful and exhausting treatments, which did not help. Oliwia’s disease relapsed, and neuroblastoma spread all over her body. Oliwia went through another round of chemo and was basically sent home to die, with doctors giving her not more than 2 weeks.
Ilona gave her natural supplements to ease her pain and suffering, and continued looking for treatment options. A month later, Oliwia was still alive, which was a miracle in itself. However, after chemo and radio therapy, she had no more bone marrow left, and had to go through a 2nd bone marrow transplant, which Ilona convinced the doctors to do against their advice and at total personal risk of Ilona and Oliwia. The transplant worked, and 2 months later Oliwia was released from the hospital.
This was not the end of the treatment yet. The cancer was still there. After the 2nd bone marrow transplant Ilona found a clinic in Germany, in the town of Greifswald, where Oliwia was admitted into a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy drug. After 6 exhausting and expensive courses of immunotherapy the treatment worked, and Oliwia was declared cancer-free. This was an absolute victory.
A daughter of a Wonder Woman cannot be anything else but a Wonder Girl. Oliwia has been exceptionally brave and withstood all the painful, gruelling treatments and dangerous surgeries. She was no longer a dying cancer patient, but a little girl, learning the life outside the hospital ward.
Oliwia enjoying the normal life outside of the hospital
This lasted for almost 3 years. In 2015 cancer returned with a vengeance. This time it was in Oliwia’s brain. Oliwia started suffering from severe headaches, and a scan revealed a 4 cm tumour in her brain. She could not go through another chemo round, as it did not really work for brain tumours and after 2 bone marrow transplants it would have killed Oliwia right away. Instead, Oliwia had brain surgery, and the tumour was removed. She was too young for the full brain radio therapy, so no follow-up treatment was possible after the surgery. After 6 months, another tumour was discovered, in the same place in her brain, but this time it was smaller, just 2 cm. Another hospital, another brain surgery, and the horrible disease seemed to retreat. Last week the doctors discovered another tumour, this one even less than 1 cm.
Ilona is now facing an impossible decision: take Oliwia through yet another brain surgery, where the doctors will remove the tumour with the surrounding brain tissue, or leave things as they are, and just focus on supporting therapy that can possibly buy Oliwia a couple more months. If they are lucky, it could be another couple of years. Regardless of the choice, they need to support themselves and the treatments. The supporting therapy Oliwia requires amounts to a little over €3,000 a month. Ilona earns about half of that. The rest comes from her savings, and savings from her family which are running thinner and thinner every day.
Both, Oliwia and Ilona continue fighting, but they need a little bit of your help to do this. They have the strength and the love that guide them through. What they are running out of is money. Oliwia's support therapy and treatments are expensive, and despite the fact that Ilona keeps working full-time while providing care for Oliwia, she does not have that many people to count on, so every little bit will help. If everybody we know donates even €1 or $1 to Oliwia's medical treatment, this will be a tremendous support to these two fantastic women, and might easily mean the difference between future or no future to Oliwia.
We believe that people are good and want to help other people. Oliwia is a fighter, and will not let you down.
Thank you all in advance for anything you can help her with!
Ilona, Oliwia & Victoria
Ilona and Oliwia live in Warsaw, Poland, and I am trying to help them finance the expensive treatments Oliwia needs to continue living a normal life.
In 2010 Oliwia has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma in her kidney - a particularly nasty type of cancer that targets infants and children. You can read more about this terrible disease here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroblastoma.
This is Oliwia!At the age of 4 she had a full cycle of chemo, surgery, radio therapy and a bone marrow transplant – a series of painful and exhausting treatments, which did not help. Oliwia’s disease relapsed, and neuroblastoma spread all over her body. Oliwia went through another round of chemo and was basically sent home to die, with doctors giving her not more than 2 weeks.
Ilona gave her natural supplements to ease her pain and suffering, and continued looking for treatment options. A month later, Oliwia was still alive, which was a miracle in itself. However, after chemo and radio therapy, she had no more bone marrow left, and had to go through a 2nd bone marrow transplant, which Ilona convinced the doctors to do against their advice and at total personal risk of Ilona and Oliwia. The transplant worked, and 2 months later Oliwia was released from the hospital.
This was not the end of the treatment yet. The cancer was still there. After the 2nd bone marrow transplant Ilona found a clinic in Germany, in the town of Greifswald, where Oliwia was admitted into a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy drug. After 6 exhausting and expensive courses of immunotherapy the treatment worked, and Oliwia was declared cancer-free. This was an absolute victory.
A daughter of a Wonder Woman cannot be anything else but a Wonder Girl. Oliwia has been exceptionally brave and withstood all the painful, gruelling treatments and dangerous surgeries. She was no longer a dying cancer patient, but a little girl, learning the life outside the hospital ward.
Oliwia enjoying the normal life outside of the hospitalThis lasted for almost 3 years. In 2015 cancer returned with a vengeance. This time it was in Oliwia’s brain. Oliwia started suffering from severe headaches, and a scan revealed a 4 cm tumour in her brain. She could not go through another chemo round, as it did not really work for brain tumours and after 2 bone marrow transplants it would have killed Oliwia right away. Instead, Oliwia had brain surgery, and the tumour was removed. She was too young for the full brain radio therapy, so no follow-up treatment was possible after the surgery. After 6 months, another tumour was discovered, in the same place in her brain, but this time it was smaller, just 2 cm. Another hospital, another brain surgery, and the horrible disease seemed to retreat. Last week the doctors discovered another tumour, this one even less than 1 cm.
Ilona is now facing an impossible decision: take Oliwia through yet another brain surgery, where the doctors will remove the tumour with the surrounding brain tissue, or leave things as they are, and just focus on supporting therapy that can possibly buy Oliwia a couple more months. If they are lucky, it could be another couple of years. Regardless of the choice, they need to support themselves and the treatments. The supporting therapy Oliwia requires amounts to a little over €3,000 a month. Ilona earns about half of that. The rest comes from her savings, and savings from her family which are running thinner and thinner every day.
Both, Oliwia and Ilona continue fighting, but they need a little bit of your help to do this. They have the strength and the love that guide them through. What they are running out of is money. Oliwia's support therapy and treatments are expensive, and despite the fact that Ilona keeps working full-time while providing care for Oliwia, she does not have that many people to count on, so every little bit will help. If everybody we know donates even €1 or $1 to Oliwia's medical treatment, this will be a tremendous support to these two fantastic women, and might easily mean the difference between future or no future to Oliwia.
We believe that people are good and want to help other people. Oliwia is a fighter, and will not let you down.
Thank you all in advance for anything you can help her with!
Ilona, Oliwia & Victoria
Organisateur
Victoria Murphy
Organisateur
Munich
