Help Children with Cancer Access Treatment!

Fourteen-year-old Kamila is from Kyrgyzstan, but right now she and her family are in Turkey where she has been fighting for her life since June.  It all started when the local doctors in Kyrgyzstan.detected a lump in her breast during an ultrasound. Initial results indicated it was a harmless hematoma. Unfortunately, a biopsy performed after the resection showed that it was a malignant tumor.  

The family was in shock, and to confirm the diagnosis, they decided to send tissue samples to a clinic in Turkey specializing in cancer treatment. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was confirmed and further clarified as alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.  It is a rare and aggressive type of soft tissue cancer that primarily affects children and young adults. The cancer was already at stage IV and had metastasized through Kamila's body involving her bones, bone marrow, spine, chest and liver. 

Kamila urgently started chemotherapy. The treatment is already showing results – the tumors are shrinking, and doctors are planning the next stages of treatment, including radiotherapy and subsequent surgery. Still, the treatment has been incredibly difficult. The constant pain in Kamila's bones and spine saps her strength.  On top of that, the cost of treatment is overwhelming.  It is completely beyond Kamila's parents' reach. And yet, continuing treatment is the only chance to save Kamila's life. 

If you would like to support Kamila in her fight for her life, please continue to donate to our project.  We focus on patients from low-income countries, like Kamila's native Kyrgyzstan, where cancer treatment hospitals are not well equipped to handle rare and aggressive cancers that often require individualized treatment plans.  Traveling abroad is often the best chance for the families to access modern treatment for their children.

Thank you for your care and support!  We are very grateful for the donations that allow us to issue financial aid to patients like Kamila! 

Little Elina was born in Kyrgyzstan and has been a healthy and happy baby. After she turned one last May, she started coughing. Initially, she was treated for bronchitis.   Two months later, she developed a fever along with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.  After test results came in, Elina was urgently referred to Pediatric Oncology in the capital, Bishkek.

While there, in August 2024, she received a diagnosis that changed her family's life. Her parents struggled to sleep for several days after learning that their joyful little girl was sick with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a type of blood cancer. The chemotherapy began, but Elina's body could not tolerate it, leading to organ failure and sepsis. Despite unfavorable prognosis, Elina managed to pull through.

For several years, Elina's father had been a blood donor, and now he was needed more than ever. Elina frequently needed platelet transfusions, so her father teamed up with a construction team right in Bishkek, close to the hospital where his daughter was fighting for her life. As time passed, however, test results revealed an increase in cancerous blood cells.

It meant that Elina was experiencing an early relapse while undergoing maintenance chemotherapy, and she urgently needed a bone marrow transplant, a highly complex treatment that is not available in Kyrgyzstan.  

To save Elina's life, in February her parents flew her to Istanbul, Turkey, where a hospital accepted her for treatment.  In May, as she turned 2, she finally received a bone marrow transplant from her father. For the next few months, she will need to be watched very carefully by the doctors to ensure any complications are quickly resolved.

Treatment in Turkey is very expensive for Elina and her family.  They were very grateful to receive support from our project as they rely on fundraising to afford medical care for Elina while also caring for her three other siblings.  

If you would like to support brave little fighers like Elina, please mark your calendar for July 16th when July Bonus Day returns with $125,000 in matching funds.  It means that the more money we raise, the more of the bonus fund we will receive, to the maximum of $2,000.  Thanks again for your support of our project!