It is time to tell you about Sumy as promised. Last week an ATO veteran whose name is Yevhen, has joined the Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded project. The man suffers from an acute pain in his leg – for year and a half he has been limping with a cane, but his condition only worsens as time goes. Yevhen suffers from the consequences of an old injury: in a battle near Shchyastya an enemy shell fragment had smashed out his foot, and due to doctors’ omission it fused up in a wrong way, so now the major bones of the foot are rubbing one another out mechanically. This caused ruination of the cartilage, bone tissue, inflammation and subsequent continuous pain in the foot under any load. Conventional medicine has proved ineffective: the maximum they can offer is medication blockades, – in other words, plain painkillers. But obviously, this cannot solve the problem, so further prospects look rather sad.
After all, Yevhen has applied to the Biotech. The initial examination revealed that the damage was caused by mechanical ruining that made bones ultimately destroyed and non-restorable. Even cell technologies would be ineffective as the complex structure of the joint makes disassembling it for treatment impossible. That is why the Project’s leading surgeon Volodymyr Oksymets has elaborated another treatment strategy. In his opinion, the reciprocally rubbing bones need to get inflexibly fixed: this operation is called arthrodesis. Given the bones stop destroying one another, the inflammation will go down, all pathological processes cease, and the pain vanish by itself. At this, the rest of joints in the foot will take up the workload from the immobilized one, since a compound structure of the lower part of the leg allows rearranging of load among its components. To put it simple, Yevhen will be able to walk naturally and with no pain.
Now to the practical side. Yevhen joined the Project having previously possessed the necessary sum of money, so People’s Project has already paid all bills on treatment. Full amount which makes over 50 000 UAH, had been crowdfunded by Sumy regional community. The action was initiated by a community foundation named after the town’s title, «Sumy», that has been patronizing the military since the beginning of the war. Raising money for Yevhen’s treatment became everybody’s concern: first it was individual donations made by sympathetic citizens, later it came to a charity auction that was held under the slogan: “Time for Good Deeds”.
Yevhen among the guests of the auction
Sumy local media deserves some extra kudos: the journalists reported on the event so wholly that it helped to attract as many people as possible to it. Quite impressive lots presented during the auction, included paintings and various artworks. For those indifferent to art but perceptive to people’s needs, the organizers installed simple boxes for contributions. Thus, the entire sum raised within the auction solely, made almost 45000 UAH. This money, along with individual contributions, was directed to Yevhen’s credit card, and the guy transferred it to the allocated account of the Engineering Rehabilitation for Wounded project. In turn, we would like to say a huge thanks to every participant: friends, you are incredible. Your generosity multiplied by your sympathy gave a wonderful chance for living a full life without pain, to a nice man with an everlasting smile, Yevhen. To be a supporting shoulder, to change someone’s life to better – is not this a fairly decent deed?
But may we finish on a sad note. As Yevhen is not the «Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded» project’s last patient. The rest of fighters whose bills for treatment within the Project have not been paid yet, are still waiting for their turn to start treatment. The authorities reject the very idea of sponsoring such methods of treatment, so these guys got completely abandoned by the state. Accordingly, crowdfunding remains the only way to help them use their chance.
For example, as soon as we started to treat Volodymyr, a girl whose name is Myroslava, has raised major part of the required sum and contributed it to this purpose. Remarkably, Myroslava is fighting against the consequences of a serious disease herself. Unfortunately, certain amount to complete the sum is still lacking. Here is Volodymyr with Taxi Driver pseudo – this good-natured funny man had narrowly escaped death and dreadful injuries, and now we are growing two new bones for his arm. And Serhiy, rather a thoughtful than merry guy, who needs our care and assistance due to shotgun injury that destroyed his elbow joint completely, so the arm is present but not functioning. Or wounded Petryk whom together with you we recently saved from amputation and maim, and now a new foot instead of damaged one, is being sculpted for him. And the rest of participants of the Project who are dependent on our support. Each hryvnia donated by you not only appears in our online report instantly. Every small contribution made by you, reinforces these guys’ optimism and improves their chances for full recovery – even in those tough conditions when there was no hope at all. So friends, we are begging you once again – please participate in the «Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded» project. This is highly, EXTREMELY important for our wounded guys.
