Sasha Tokmakova, 3 years old, Marhanets, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine.

The letter to the foundation from the parents:

Sasha didn’t turn 3 years old when her childhood changed. Childish games and entertainments, paying a visit, children’s birthday parties with an important attribute, a birthday cake, all that was replaced by an intensive care unit, hospital walls, daily insulin injections, endless finger sticks and a permanent hunger feeling.

A little fun girl turned into a thoughtful and too serious for her age kid.
For more than a year my little Sasha is struggling with a “sugarless” life. Every day she has at least six insulin injections and up to 24 finger sticks to verify blood sugar level.

It’s so difficult to explain to a child why chocolate, candies and cakes, everything that little girls like, are not allowed anymore. Why it’s necessary to eat something you are allowed to and not something you really want. In fact, every bit is under control.

The real danger of diabetes mellitus type I doesn’t lie in acute symptoms but in chronic complications (kidney and eye damage, injury of blood vessels of the legs, nervous and heart-vascular system damage).

One way of protecting my little Sasha from complications of the disease which can be developed very quickly and diabetic coma is the insertion of continuous glucose monitoring in the blood. But for that to happen it’s necessary to have the medical expendables, sensor devices. Its price is very high.

At the moment our family is not able to buy these sensor devices and monitor, so we have to keep vigil over our daughter night and day, so that we can help her in time.

During the year of the disease the financial situation of our family has been exhausted. The State hasn’t given us a single test strip which every diabetic uses daily and more than once.

The glucose monitoring will release our child from multiple daily finger sticks, as there is not a clear place to be seen on her little fingers. Dear people, we beg you not ignore the child’s pain. Give our girl an opportunity to be like other kids, at least at something. All through her life she will have to refuse some food products and control carefully everything she eats because of diabetes. But let her live without everyday pain and fear! Any your help is very important for our child. 

We express gratitude for your supporting and tender hearts.

Parents of little Sasha, Marina and Maxim Tokmakov.

If you would like to help little Sasha, contact us by email at the following adress: info@grosses-herz-fuer-kleine.de