Defeat cancer and see the world: the story of the ward of the center “Eva”

Since 2021, more than 400 children have been rehabilitated at the center. Some have multiple courses. Our heroine Sophia is going through a difficult recovery after oncology in Eva. She was an ordinary healthy child, attended school. When she was seven years old, her parents noticed that something was wrong with the child. The girl began to have regular headaches, which were later accompanied by frequent pain in the abdomen and legs. It became difficult for her to concentrate and hold her attention. For a long time, the parents could not understand what was the matter, they took their daughter for examination. Sophia was examined by therapists, gastroenterologists, orthopedists. When they found nothing, the parents took their daughter to the Institute of Neurosurgery. Romodanov. There, Sophia was diagnosed with a tumor on her cerebellum. The girls were scheduled for emergency surgery.

Fortunately, the tumor did not have time to grow to the cerebellum. The operation went well. However, this interference does not go unnoticed. After the operation, Sophia stopped talking, her procession was disrupted. The body suffered from chemotherapy.

“It was hard, but the doctor encouraged us, said: everything will be fine. You will complete a course of chemotherapy, start rehabilitation, and your daughter will gradually recover. The main thing is not to give extra loads and not stimulate the tumor, ” - tells Sophia’s mother Irina.

Thus began a period of rehabilitation that continues to this day. The process was aggravated by the fact that cancer cells were still circulating in Sophia’s body. Therefore, they were afraid to take the girl for rehabilitation. Some rehabilitation institutions even denied my mother massage treatments. The only type of exercise that doctors allowed Sophia was swimming.

“We only did swimming for several years, and it helped Sofia a lot. Subsequently, she began to speak, she herself held her head, then we learned to walk - I held her by the arms, ” - says mom.

The family first came to Eva before a full-scale invasion, although they had planned a visit long before it. Today Sofia visits the center several times a week. It happens that he comes here every day, sometimes on his own, more often with his mother. Exercise therapy, a swimming pool, sessions with a psychologist and communication with other children are the main focus of Sofia’s rehabilitation.

“At this age, socialization is no less important for her. There is everything for this, even a group of children of about the same age was gathered. They gather and communicate. For the sake of this, the children themselves want to go here. That’s great. A psychologist works with children. Both individually and as a group. In these classes, they dance and sing, play different games. For example, that Sofia is a tour operator, one of the children comes to her office as a client, and they play the sale of foreign tours. Do you talk like that at home?” - mother Irina tells about her daughter’s favorite activities.

The center works with children for two months. With this approach, it is necessary to provide comprehensive rehabilitation for small wards and track the dynamics of improvements, as well as develop new habits for home exercises. From this stage depends on how quickly and whether the child will return to a full life.

“Many programs and philanthropists take care of the treatment of children with cancer and provide surgery with the best equipment and supplies. There are fewer rehabilitation projects. Therefore, we are especially happy to see how the symbiosis of Eva as highly specialized specialists and us as a business helps Ukrainians to recover,” - speaks director of the Flow Fund and managing partner of the TECHIIA holding Oleg Krot.

Sofia is now twenty years old. She combines rehabilitation with her second-year studies at the University of Ukraine - she visits the center when there are no couples or after them.

“I really like it here. Here we do exercise therapy, art therapy, draw. Coach Maxim praises me very much, gives me different tasks. I love to swim in the pool. To be honest, I swim much better than I walk.” - smiles Sofia.

The girl says that in the future she wants to work in a travel agency and sell tours to people. But first you need to complete your studies and visit as many countries as possible yourself. She was already in Germany and Egypt. And now she dreams of visiting the USA, Korea and Japan.