Book of consolations
Happiness-hear. One-year-old Daniil Kalko from the village of Subbottsy in the Kirovohrad region urgently needs cochlear implantation. The boy was diagnosed with fourth-degree sensorineural hearing loss. Without a cochlear implant, Danya can’t hear or learn to speak. In order to pay for the operation, you need a very large amount: 800,000 hryvnias!
Ufond journalist Nina Filatova tells the story of Dani Kalko to Kate Kolesnik, actress and screenwriter of the popular sketch committee "When We Are Home".
- Katya, tell me, did you have to communicate with deaf people?
- I could just watch them, such cute couples in the subway, who talked very emotionally. Seeing them, I, of course, wonder what they are like in society. In my opinion, these are ordinary full-fledged people, only with special features, and I always rejoice, fall in love when I see them happy. I am glad that people find each other, love, kiss. And if it so happened that they grew up happy people, they probably had parents who took care of them and taught them to understand this world.
But I would very much like hearing problems to be solved quickly, especially in children. And there should not be hundreds of children in the free queue for a cochlear implant. You said Danya was 369th in line, but probably not the last! And it’s hard for me to imagine how the mothers of these children feel, who want to help their babies regain their hearing, but they can’t help without doctors and money! I am sure that the mother would have sacrificed anything, if only the child had recovered, and he had the opportunity to develop.
- Parents of children in need of treatment are extremely courageous people, because most have to fight for the health of children for months or even years. They all went through different stages of despair, hopelessness, depression, and each of them sought and found support in himself. Have you had to face crisis situations and what are you looking for support in?
- Maybe my story is a little different, it is not like the story of mothers who fight for the health of their children. My stories, where I pulled myself out, are connected with losses… I have no parents, grandparents, but, fortunately, I have older brothers, a godmother, my mother’s sisters. My biggest loss is my mother… after she left I had a long depression, I could cry, but I did it alone. I could return to Zaporozhye, to my family. But usually on difficult days I direct my energy in some direction, most often I go to work. Or help someone. My personal inner pain - the fact that I once could not help my mother - now motivates me to help whenever possible: be it a sick child or someone’s mother… As if saving someone’s life, I atone for my guilt. But this is my pain, and I would not want people to read about losses…
I would like to talk about what gives hope, and it seems to me that mothers of sick children can share their stories and give hope to others.
Against the background of their stories, everything that seems out of the ordinary to us: someone’s rudeness, dismissal from work, is not really that important. When you read such stories on social networks or on the website of a charity foundation, you realize that you should not complain about life. And, of course, if there is an opportunity not to drink an extra cup of coffee or not to buy another shoe, and with this money to help someone, it is worth doing.
First, it will bring you pleasure: you were able to help and save someone’s life. Or donate blood for someone. Even though I realize that I can’t do it very well - I lose consciousness with every blood donation - I still try to help. There was a story… someone had to save mom. You know, adults are helped less often, not as actively as children… But I know what it’s like to lose my mother and I really didn’t want it to happen to someone else… And I, although I knew I would be sick, still went and gave blood. Because I understood, these are incommensurable things: someone’s life is on the verge and my weakness.
When you think you are lonely and abandoned, you should help someone to understand - you are needed. Now Dane needs the whole world, the whole of Ukraine, or at least a number of people who will respond to his plight. He really needs them! And they need Danya! Together we can give him the opportunity to develop. How do you know, maybe this boy will grow up and become a great engineer, astronaut or president, or maybe a pianist ?!
- Kindness, believe it or not, describes the circle and returns to the one who was kind. It is only important that she be active. - Yes, I always understood that you can’t be locked in your world. Only when you lose a loved one do you feel stronger and deeper. Unfortunately, my mom can’t be brought back. But there is an opportunity to make someone’s mother, in particular Danina, happy and to calm her heart. And it’s cool that there are new treatment technologies, and it’s a pity that only money becomes an obstacle to health. It would be a different matter if these technologies did not exist… But they no longer need to be invented, they are created! And of course, I want Dane and those children who are waiting in line for a free implant to help him.
I sometimes pay attention to who helps: sometimes, for example, students drop money, let 50 hryvnias… But if a student can share this amount, then a working person can share more. And if not - then 50 hryvnia, if you collect them throughout Ukraine, you can collect an amount that will help!
- Katya, what could you wish Dani’s parents?
- I would like them to keep the power of the spirit, because it seems to me that the strongest person in the world is the mother of a sick child. There is nothing stronger than this female mother’s heart. And I would like to wish Dani’s mother strength, patience, faith, because everything will happen, a miracle will happen. It happens exactly where we believe, pray, wait, and leave no hope.
I want that, but I understand perfectly well that we need to learn a lot from women like Dani’s mother. That’s why Dani’s mother has unquenchable faith and strength, which she is sure to replenish by looking her son in the eye. She understands what she lives for and what she fights for. I wish Danya to recover and never get sick again.
HELP DANIL - https://ufond.ua/424