Dasha died on June 25, 2010

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Hello!
My name is Tatiana, I am 34. I live in the Leningrad Region. I have quite an ordinary family: a husband and three children, two boys (aged 15 and 11) and a long-awaited daughter Dasha who just turned two.
It so happened that Dasha had to spend her second birthday in hospital. I have never thought that such a disaster, such a terrible disease could hit us! It all started on August 22 with a high fever. The doctors could not figure out what was going on with Dasha until we had a blood test which showed that the leukocyte count was almost deadly.
At first we were urgently admitted to the Central Regional Hospital of the town of Lodeinoe Pole, and on September 2 we came to the Raisa Gorbacheva Institute (where we are staying right now). That same day Dasha was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The world collapsed in one day, even in one minute.
It is so hard now to remember how we lived before the disease when my child was healthy and used to run barefoot along the river bank laughing and dance when she heard the music...
Dasha loves the song about Buratino, the Russian Pinocchio, and can watch the movie about him several times per day.
On September 3 her chemotherapy course started. The blood counts seemed to be normal, and the girl was doing fine, and we were getting ready to go home. And then there suddenly came another shock: examinations showed there was NO REMISSION!
The disease came back, and the leukocyte counts were going up dramatically again. Another blow. Lord, how can one endure that?!
We were acknowledged as belonging to a high relapse risk group, and now Dasha is to have a bone marrow transplantation. We need to start the search for a donor because the elder children (and that was yet another shock!) did not match Dasha as donors. The donor search costs 15,000 euros, and another 2,500 euros is needed for the delivery of the transplant to St. Petersburg. Dasha is now getting a high dose chemotherapy course.
I do not like asking for help – I have always been coping on my own. But now I have no choice. The treatment course is lengthy and expensive, so we will be grateful for any help we can get.
I pray to God that He saved my little girl, I totally rely on the doctors' professionalism and hope that the little one will cope with all that.

Tatiana Vasilievna Kuznetsova, mother

Dasha's page at the Rossiisky Fond Pomoschi Fund

Medical conclusion
Invoice for the donor search in Germany

Update as of November 23, 2009. We are very grateful to the Rossiisky Fond Pomoschi fund which agreed to pay 10,000 euros to cover the donor transplant sampling. So we must urgently raise 5,000 euros to pay for the donor search itself.

Update as of December 13, 2009. Advita Fund USA transferred $3,000 to S. Morsch registry as a partial payment for the bone marrow donor search for Dasha.

Update as of December 24, 2009. Unfortunately Dasha's blasts began to grow very fast and it was impossible to wait until the donor is found. The doctors decided to perform an urgent haploidentical transplantation from the mother.
Dasha is now in cytopenia, she was diagnosed with aspergillosis and needs Vfend.

Update as of January 28, 2010. Dasha recovered after transplantation and was transferred to outpatient monitoring. She began showing first signs of skin GVHD.

Update as of March 26, 2010. Dasha is monitored as an outpatient. She takes immunosuppressive therapy and Vfend. She feels well.

Update as of April 30, 2010. Unfortunately, Dasha relapsed. She underwent anti-relapse chemotherapy under FLAG protocol and donor's lymphocyte infusion. The doctors are waiting for her response to treatment. Dasha still needs Vfend.

Update as of May 25, 2010. Dasha completed a course of anti-relapse chemotherapy under FLAG protocol. However, based on a puncture results, she did not achieve remission. Donor's chimerism decreased and the disease is progressing again.
Dasha is now on chemotherapy to control the leukemia. She is planned to undergo transplantation again (possibly, from her father). She is taking Vfend.
We are enormously grateful to all the people we know and don't know who are praying for our girl, and helping us financially and emotionally! We are particularly thankful to all the doctors and nurses who are doing all they can to help Dasha get well. God help us.
Dasha's mom

Update as of May 26, 2010. Dasha underwent a cycle of anti-relapse chemotherapy under FLAG protocol, but did not respond. A possibility of second transplant and Clofarabine therapy are under discussion. Dasha still needs Vfend.

Update as of June 24, 2010. Dasha is in a serious condition. She is in intensive care unit on artificial lung ventilation. Leukemia is not responding to treatment.

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