Dear friends, let us keep our fingers crossed for Volodymyr who is to undergo the second operation within the Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded project. It may seem easy and not too serious as the surgery is preparatory and doctors are only getting Volodymyr ready for the main stage of treatment. But in fact the surgery is vast and sophisticated. Yet lately, during the first operation, the doctors took Volodymyr’s biological material for further work with cell cultures. Apart from this, they checked remains of his bones, fixed them in due physiological position and got them ready for further treatment. In the course of the second surgery the defect zone is to be filled with spacer, special medical cement allowing the arm to keep its natural physiological form, helping to preserve the bones and let the tissues heal and restore before implantation of cell materials.
The general situation still remains problematic. The fighter with the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade, Volodymyr’s injury is quite terrifying – his forearm literally lacks bones. The guy got wounded in March in Zaitseve, when an enemy mortar mine exploded next to him. The only thing he had time to do was to cover his face with his forearm, the body part which had been affected the worst. Mine fragments shelled Volodymyr in the face, hit pieces of bones out of his upper limb and leaving intact small parts of them near the joints. Naturally, conventional medicine possesses no means to treat such injuries, offering plain amputation instead.
But it seems highly negligent to agree to amputation when there is at least a minor chance to restore the arm. Before the war the man managed to try various occupations like a teacher, a car driver (this is where his call sign, Taxi Driver, comes from), and even a dance instructor. Just imagine how it feels to lose an arm for such a skilled person adoring his kids and wife, loving his family and life devotedly! So Volodymyr feels determined and sure that when have recovered he will be able to dance Hopak again.
That is why we believe in the Bioengineering Rehabilitation of Wounded project and cell technologies alone. In Ukraine, treatment of severe injuries of the kind is carried out only at the ilaya clinic so far. And not because of the clinic’s non-existent selfish politics aiming at keeping their innovative technologies in secret, but due to the truly shameful approach shown by the official medicine which offers cutting injured limbs off instead of implementing and developing new technologies allowing to rehabilitate seriously wounded fighters. Naturally, our Project gives hope to many wounded because it suggests the way of treatment under which doctors grow missing bone fragments anew, implant them into defective zones and fuse them using the patient’s own cells. As a matter of fact, this treatment is efficient and worthwhile, allowing to productively rebuild the wounded soldiers’ limbs. In addition, it is reasonably cheaper than amputation with further prosthetics and lifetime expenditures for a disabled person’s living.
Now to the disappointing matters. The expectations for the state’s support, at least partial one, are evidently vanishing. “You guys go to the front and fight, and if you get wounded, look for proper treatment on your own.” This is how the position of the Ukraine’s ministry of health protection officials look. That is why we Ukrainians feel accountable for rehabilitation of our wounded defenders, at our common expense, on funds raised under various charity initiatives. This is the goal the Bioengineering Rehabilitation for Wounded project pursues as well – the donations you send to the Project’s accounts are accumulated and used for the wounded fighters’ needs as soon as the time to pay for their treatment comes. One third of Volodymyr’s treatment cost has been already paid, but there are more new payments ahead. Having combined our efforts, we have already managed to restore a few dozens of wounded fighters abandoned by the state’s official medicine. But we are capable of helping more people, this is the reason why we are appealing to you once and once again. Dear friends, it would be far from human to leave our wounded defenders alone. So let us take a bit more efforts together again.
