Newsletter November, 2008

Dear friends,

The city of St. Petersburg is preparing for the big celebration: shop windows, buildings, and lanterns are being decorated with colorful garlands. New Year’s trees are being erected in the streets. The magical time of joy, surprises and congratulations, so much beloved by all children, will soon be upon us.

Within this month we were busy with a pleasant, but very crucial thing: together with our patients we wrote letters to Grandfather Frost! In the case of a severely ill child it has a special significance. When one has spent many months in a hospital and his most treasured desire - health – has not been fulfilled, one ceases to believe in miracles. So many times we have heard the words: ‘Anyway nothing will happen! I do not want anything!’ But concealed behind these painful and alarming words is the sparkle of hope in the child's eyes. And we are fortunate to have the ability to help a child enter into the festive mood of the celebrations and to make this spark of hope and belief flare up!

In November our pediatricians participated in a conference devoted to a hereditary disease - mucoviscidosis. There are a lot of children among our patients with this diagnosis and our doctors were very interested in meeting with experts who regularly deal with the problems of diagnoses and treatment of this congenital pathology in hospitals. Our specialists prepared a report about the problems with developing individual rehabilitation programs and solutions.

Within our program for providing families in need with equipment items they cannot afford, we purchased electronic nursing beds for two children, and an electronic wheelchair for another ill girl suffering from amiotrophy.

One of the most memorable events of the month was visiting a concert of MakSim -a famous Russian pop-singer. Show organizers did not only donate to us plenty of tickets, but they also arranged a backstage meeting with the star after the concert where all interested children could take autographs and be photographed with MakSim.
Malika S. did not even dare to dream of an opportunity to meet the singer. It’s impossible to explain her joy when she learned that she will meet her idol!

Fans of rock music attended a show of the band "Aria". For the boys rocking with wheelchairs the concert became an unforgettable event. We thank the management for the kind attitude shown to our patients, for the convenient seats and securing the safety of those in attendance.

Hospice volunteers have been educating our children in the art of animation for several months. In November they arranged an excursion to the cartoon film studio “Melnitsa” ("Mill").
The children were told about the different stages of a cartoon’s creation and they watched some pieces of the new full-length animated feature film “Tale of Soldier Fedot, the Daring Fellow” based on the fairy-tale with the same name by Leonid Filatov.

Also in November the Children's Hospice welcomed clowns from America. They visited several of the patients and arranged a remarkable performance with gags, conjuring tricks and practical jokes.

Prince and Princess Gregoriy Galitzine are our old friends. Within events dedicated to celebrating 600 years of Galitzine Family service to Russia, Gregoriy and Svetlana Galitzine arranged a charitable exhibition of works of modern English and Russian artists. All funds raised from the sale of the pictures were donated to the Children's Hospice. This is one of the many charitable activities organized by Prince and Princess Galitzine in aid of Children's Hospice. We thank them wholeheartedly for their participation and attention to the needs of our little patients!

Visits to a dolphinarium, a cinema, and an aqua-park were also organized. No other sight is more joyful to see than the happy face of a child. Their world stops to be limited by only their home and hospital. Many of them gain new interests, to say nothing of new friendships formed between families meeting each other during excursions.

In this issue of our newsletter we would like to introduce to you Anna Tashtan, the head of our psychological service. Anna is distinguished by such qualities as clear thinking, responsibility, creative attitude to work and a great sense of humor. She tries to make her meetings with children fascinating, cheerful and productive. It is no wonder that children always wait for her coming with impatience.

She prepared brochures for parents of our patients with information about oncological diseases and advice on how to help a child to cope with the death of somebody close to them.
Anna is engaged much in the orientation, training and counseling of our volunteers. Last month she arranged training for our employees devoted to dealing with the problems of interaction with the family of a dying child.

Anna Tashtan plans to launch some more interesting projects directed towards aid to families of our patients. We are sure that all these plans will be successfully realized in the near future.

We are happy that we can share our small successes and achievements with you and to tell you about the typical situations which face our employees on a daily basis. We hope that what you have read touches both your heart and your soul. Please share this joy with your friends and pass this newsletter on to some of them. If any questions arise, don’t hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to hear from you.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Alexander Tkachenko, Children’s Hospice, November 2008
Detski Hospis/Children’s Hospice