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Stop Disease! Give a Chance for Normal Life to The One Who Is Yet To Discover the Beauty Of the World!

Today Andrei is a 17–year–old teen. His health condition can hardly be described as “normal”. For nine years this young and in many ways promising individual has been suffering from Hepatitis C.

He was just eight when he was infected and it took doctors almost a year to diagnose him with this severe disease. Recovery meant numerous and long medical treatment courses.

“I remember the day I returned home from my first stay in hospital — I threw a glance in the mirror and my reflection did not remind me of a person I used to be. I looked somehow emaciated. Believe me it's rather difficult to face new reality when you are just eight. It's even harder to accept it. When I was going through those health rehabilitation courses in various hospitals, I had to miss classes. Those where months of missed classes, you know, I thought I would never catch up with my class–mates. But I believed that some day the cure will be found. I cherished that idea in my small heart and I decided not to give up. I started a long fight for life. My life. I wanted it without drugs, hospitals and days of “not feeling well”; and with careless games with my peers; and in the future with a degree in computer engineering” — says Andrei.

But troubles never come singly. One day Andrei's father said that he was no longer able to cope with this critical situation in the family. He left home and abandoned Andrei, his brother and mother Svetlana. The young woman faced financial difficulties, loneliness and helplessness. There was no extra money to buy decent medications for Andrei any longer. He and his mother did the best they could — fixed appointments with doctors, purchased necessary medicines they could afford, followed the diet. But not much really helped. Side effects of low–quality drugs weakened Andrei's body even more.

With pain and hope in heart Svetlana started knocking on all doors looking for opportunities to save her child, asking for financial contributions that she would use to purchase good–quality medicines for Andrei. She was looking for solution of the problem and the answer came when she got in touch with the JDC in Minsk. Thanks to the Jewish international partnership programs that help meet needs of the world's most vulnerable citizen — children, a special drug for Andrei was brought to Minsk.

Ribavirin — a high–quality medication that is enough to complete a Hepatitis C treatment course when taken with a number of other drugs — was sent to Minsk by World Jewish Relief (WJR) , one of the main international partners of the Belarusian Jewish Community. On March 23, 2006, Elena came to Resource and Development Centre in the Minsk Jewish Campus to receive18 bottles of this medication.

“I am on the way to get back to normal life!” Andrei said after being on Ribavirin for a month as his health improved greatly.

Today Andrei is working hard to catch up with school program; today he builds plans of studying in college; and today, thanks to people, whose hearts were full of compassion and love for some teen they even do not know, Andrei's dream of becoming a good computer engineer is about to come true. And what can be more rewarding than knowing that someone's life can become so much better because someone in the world REALLY cared? Maybe it was you, somebody reading this story?

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