Recently, at the ilaya clinic, we have met a fighter whom we did not see about a year. Oleksandr has come over for his regular check-up, just to make sure that rehabilitation goes as planned. Earlier, we did not tell you much about this bravest man: both his morale and his well-being did not correspond with friendly chatting too much. Still it is worth telling about him.
Oleksandr belongs to those warriors who stepped up to fight the first, as soon as the enemy invaded Ukraine. He went to the war as a volunteer, having joined the Donbas battalion at the very first days of war. Went through all the hot spots of it; liberated Ukrainian cities and towns from terroristic scum. Oleksandr is the native of Donetsk, and he recalls that in 2014 his unit reached the outskirts of the city – the man was able to distinct his own house and was getting ready to invite his comrades for a cup of tea, still alas… Later, there happened Ilovaisk – and nobody awaited such a large scale tragedy. While withdrawing from the encirclement, on the 29th of August, 2014, Oleksandr had been captured. It lasted for two days and two desperate nights. Russian paratroopers, lately traditionally referred to as “they’renotthere”, noticed a chevron of the Donbass battalion and the Ukrainian flag on the captured fighter’s uniform. It was enough to start their inhuman tortures.
Oleksandr recollects the humiliation and abuse he underwent in the captivity, with much pain. He was not willing to respond to the occupiers’ questions, so they beat him with heartless cruelty – in the way that all his body went black. He says, his back turned into a massive bruise. And it hurt so much he could not get up. The man was afraid he got paralyzed due to his broken spine. The torturers jumped on the man lying on the ground, hit him on the head and twisted his legs, – it now makes the main injury that Oleksandr has still been trying to heal at the Biotech.
On coming back from the captivity, Oleksandr spent some time in a hospital where he got treatment of his chief injuries, and returned to the forefront with the Dnipro-1 battalion. As there remained lots of injuries to his body, the man got used to continuous pain. Apart from pain in the leg, he suffered from back pain and heavy concussion, as well as experienced big problems with his kidneys. Later, doctors found two cysts in his head and in a kidney. Suffering from these complex health problems, the man just did not pay due attention to his injured leg which signaled with acute pain time after time. He fought for about a year, not aware of the fact that necrosis was developing in the wounded area. That meant the ruined bone tissue went necrotic.
Oleksandr joined the Biotech project when he realized he was unable to suffer that pain any more. At that time, necrosis spread over a vast area, so in the conventional hospital, they just failed to help him. The access to the talus bone was limited, so the chief surgeon of the Project, Volodymyr Oksymets, decided to fill the defected area with special biological gel, saturated with the patient’s own cells. Formation of full functional bone tissue and sprouting it with blood vessels takes certain time. Still the method seems self-approving as the MRI test taken four month following the cells insertion, showed absence of necrosis as well as noticeable whitening of the bone which means it is getting hardened.
The first x-ray was taken about a year ago, in December of 2016. The second one is dated by September, 2017
Oleksandr himself remembers that before the war his body used to be exceptionally robust, even with “not a broken bone” at all. Hence, about a year of walking with crutches felt rather difficult to him. Moreover, there emerge other consequences caused by his wounds: due to heavy concussion, his eyesight has been notably worsening. For a shooting Master of Sports, the title Oleksandr possesses, this is a hard verdict to accept.
Luckily, we have some heart-warming news at least about Oleksandr’s leg. The Biotech’s chief surgeon Volodymyr Oksymets examined the latest x-rays of it, estimated the progress and allowed the man to get rid of one crutch. Over time, in late winter, Oleksandr will be able to change the crutch for a cane.
Oleksandr admits, he feels exceptionally grateful to everyone who assisted him in his treatment. He is amazed at the possibilities of modern medicine as well as the fast pace of bioengineering in Ukraine. The man is sure: now Ukraine is really able of applying the technologies of the 21st century. Unfortunately, the state conventional medicine seems has been stuck in the approaches of the 19th century.
Hopefully, over time our state will be able to treat its heavily wounded fighters at the appropriate level. Meanwhile we, the volunteers of People’s Project, are proceeding with our patronizing the guys abandoned by the state medicine. So we are grateful to everyone who are assisting us in this: each hryvnia donated by you into the Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded project, brings our heroes closer to their recuperation and full unlimited life, a normal one.
