Let me tell you a story…
I am a mother with a horrendous sorrow.
My son Dobri Stefanov Nikolov is 11 years old. In March 2006, he became ill from the most ruthless and cruel disease of Acute non-lymphoblast leukaemia, myelomonocytic type. Since then, life for my family and me has turned into hell. My husband and I were devastated – our biggest treasure, the sunshine of our lives had the worst and the most fatal illness of humanity.
I will never forget the day in which the doctor of my son, Belcheva MD from III Oncological Haematology Diagnostic Consultation Centre in Varna, told me the horrifying news. AWFUL! I felt an overwhelming pain, a feeling of huge emptiness inside me. God, why?! Why my sunshine, my one and only child, why… Why not me instead of him - it could have been me going through the many chemotherapy courses, which as it turned out, were hardly bearable for his fragile body.
I will never forget the first chemotherapy course. The Alexan dosages were too high (blasts exceeded 85%) and Dobi lost 15 kilos of weight within a month.
He stopped eating, he stopped talking to me, he didn’t want to see anyone – not even his father, the only thing he wanted was to stop the immense physical pain. From the rapid weight loss he didn’t have any strength to get up from bed, his muscles degenerated. The thing he had energy for was to sleep all the time and he wanted to wake up and that nightmare to be over.

www.help-dobri.org

Alas! That wasn’t happening. For every pain in the stomach the nurses injected him with anaesthetics whose effect lasted for only half an hour. And that went on for day and night... Dobcho got awful hallucinations from the anaesthetics – fear and hallucinations both when he was asleep and awake. The horror of seeing your child’s pain and listening to it saying “Mum, I want to die to stop the pain. Help me”, is indescribable. Morphine didn’t help him either. His indicators collapsed, his intestines stopped functioning and his belly started to swell and the risk of peritonitis appeared. The only thing that could be done was to give him the most powerful antibiotics and to wait for an improvement. And it came. With God’s help and with the wonderful team of III Diagnostic Consultation Centre, standing by him 24 hours a day. But that was not all – Dobri contracted Hepatitis C as a result from the many bio products transfused to him, as this additionally complicated his condition. And this was 9 months of suffering, pain, hopelessness and desperation. Since 21 December 2006, he has been on maintaining treatment with Alexan (small dosages) and Lanvis. At the present moment the disease is in remission and the salvation and chances for Dobri are in stem cell transplant, and unfortunately abroad, as we do not have a compatible family donor and there is not anyone to carry out the transplantation.

I am telling you this story because in this hard period of our life I need your help.
A mother and a father are looking for support and help from their compatriots for a life-saving stem cell transplantation of their son.
Help me bring back the life of my child
Help me bring Dobi back to school – to his classmates and friends!
Help me give him his mischief and dreams.
I believe in the goodness in all of you.
Thank you

With a lot of faith and hope:
Diyana and Stefan