"To fix what’s broken." How charity rehabilitation center works

Photo by Vera Kostamo/TASS MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. The Metelitsa team is the only female team in the world with a record of 20 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic (Metelitsa is a poetic, diminutive word for ‘snowstorm’). The girls have top ranking in sports, in skiing, orienteering, radio sports, parachuting, mountain tourism. Their last expedition to the high latitudes was in the late 1990s. Their followers, pupils and friends have been working at the rehabilitation center not far from Moscow. After those expeditions, the girls opened a new page in their lives. One day, not far from their office they saw disabled boys. The boys were unable to join the games of their friends. The Metelitsa team decided to support the kids. At first, they made joint trips across the Moscow Region. "We assist downed pilots," the girls say. House for "downed pilots" In a small rented cottage in the Penino village, the team has organized a guesthouse for people with most complicated disorders. Only seven people can stay and train there at a time. Others receive consultations from home. Presently, Metelitsa has 120 clients in different cities - from the Moscow region to Kamchatka. Regretfully, sometimes they have to refuse new applications - due to the funding shortage. - Our clients are "downed pilots." They all have negative rehabilitation potentials. They all have been refused, they are not worth services or upgrades. Till a certain time, we were not earning enough. The next stage was a storm - the more people learn the more clients come. I fear to move forward - we’ll be under an avalanche, - Svetlana Samara said. She is the president of the Metelitsa International Organization. The first to meet visitors coming to Penino are the dogs. Four curious creatures, that are here also for good reasons. The fussy, noisy hosts make this special atmosphere, which is so different from the urban life. Other hosts are hens and cat Pulya (Bullet). The dogs are barking, and Svetlana’s cell is barking to notify incoming texts. Calls and messages keep coming without breaks. - Every day, people address us, but we are short of reserves. Right now, a teenager in Kostroma needs us badly. We can’t imagine what to do. We do consult people to explain to them how they must be moving steadily on and on. We teach them how to practice at home. Some people take this with understanding, but at times people get rude, Svetlana said. She explains non-stop why so many people are apply to them. - After any accident, people as a rule spend a month at hospital. Some have to remain there for six months, or even longer. The first six months is the survival. Later on, begins the time, where the person and the family have to get adjusted to the situation. At that time, people normally think - they will leave hospital, stay at home for a while, and then will begin the rehab period. Here, they realize getting a rehab is not so easy. Bedsores, tracheostomy (a surgically created hole for a special tube to allow breathing), gastrostomy (an artificial hole connecting the anterior abdominal wall and stomach with a tube so that food and medicines are injected through it) are contraindications to half of the procedures. Such contraindications are very numerous. People get refusals from state-run clinics. Commercial centers are too expensive for most families. - Families sell out whatever they have to buy a two-month rehab program. At the same time, a spinal fracture recovery may take from one year to five years, or even longer. As time goes by, the family and the patient get exhausted both in terms of money and in terms of patience, Svetlana said. Yura Yura, Sergey, Nikita and Kesha workout in the gym, which Metelitsa’s staff has built. Looking at them, it’s not easy to realize their hard years-long work. Yura is standing inside a device, which keeps him upright, and seems to be doing nothing. Unless you learn how it all began. He got injured at the age of 18: he was sitting on the windowsill, couldn't keep the balance, and slipped off. Off the fourth floor. He crashed into an air conditioner, smashed the head, and broke the neck, thoracic spine, a leg and an arm. Who could take care of the boy: by that time the mother had passed away, and the father was working in long shifts. Neighbors, whenever they could, came to visit Yura and take care of him. Yura said the true fear and despair began when he saw a rat, which used to come through a hole in the floor. "It was clear, it used to come at the same time, day after day, searching for food, and that food was me." The rat bit the boy’s heels and bedsores. "I realized - soon would come the time that the rat will bring along other rats. I was panicking, I wrote to everyone I could think about, asking for help. Not a single fund has replied. Later on, I came across the story of Lena Sheryshova - Metelitsa’s client." By that time, Yura had remained in bed for 26 months. - When he was brought here, his condition was that he could barely control the head. There was a difficult situation with the bladder stuffed with 350 ml of stones. The first thing we did: we dealt with the bedsores, fed him intensively, treated the bladder. Yura had to lie on his stomach for nine months. Later, we were able to turn him over and have him sit. Yura underwent surgery to straightened the arms. Now, he can hold the head, work with hands, sit. He entered the Psychological and Pedagogical Institute to study conflict management, and besides he learns to become an SMM marketer, - Svetlana said. Metelitsa handles all problems in a complex. Traumas reset the entire previous life of a person, including the education. Yura had studied to be a foundry worker. He will never be able to do that job. - When Yura sent to us the photos of bedsores, we got horrified. We called the local medicine. Alexey Fedosov, the head physician of the Central Hospital in the city of Gay, helped us a lot. It took me quite a time to explain to him on the phone who we are and what we want. We had a problem — how to transport Yura to the airport. The nearest city is Orsk. There was silence on the phone, I thought the line was lost, and even asked if the doctor was there. He asked me again, in a very calm voice: "Are you really going to take him? And for how long?" I answered: "Until he gets up." The doctor replied that he would do everything to get Yura to the airport on time. "Here, he will die. I can't do anything," said Svetlana. — He perfectly and accurately performed everything in compliance with the law - to the extent we could hardly believe." Inside the device, keeping the patient’s vertical position, Yura now can stand for one hour - this is his first and great step towards the victory. Lena - Quite often we pick a patient, but we don't know what awaits us. When we spoke to Lena on the phone, she said that she had problems with her leg and it may be amputated. When we arrived there, we asked a surgeon to examine Lena. The doctor saw other problems and ordered to have an MRI. I ask: "MRI of what? She replied, "MRI of everything." Lena is 22. In April, 2017, she was pushed off the eighth floor. Within the first five months after the injury, the girl underwent five surgeries. She spent six weeks inside the Ilizarov device, two months with stretching weights screwed into the skull (the spine traction is a specific technique in which traction is used to treat muscle spasm, deformities in the vertebral column and dislocations of the vertebrae; the constant stretching eliminates problems and keeps the spine in good shape). Due to a lack of care, Lena’s bedsores had been growing. - In the MRI images, we saw a set of bones that were "scattered around" in the area where the pelvis must be. The sacrum was loose, the spine was fractured in the lumbar part, eight fractures in the pelvis. By that time, Lena had been at home for almost a year. She had been told: "You're lazy, you need to learn to walk." No one believed that Lena couldn't do it. The hospital’s file read the girl can walk. But the images showed something completely different, - Svetlana said. Lena has undergone 21 surgeries. More surgeries are to come: to reconstruct the pelvis and the spine. In the past, such surgeries were made in Yekaterinburg, but they cannot help Lena. The only hospital in the world, ready to examine Lena, is in Saloniki. Greek specialists are very experienced in treating traumas, when people fall off from a height. The examination’s cost is 3,100 euros, excluding flight and accommodation expenses. Lena has passed the secondary school graduation exams, entered a university, plans to take another course; she’s been Svetlana’s administrative assistant. Katya Katya is 37. She’s a radiologist doctor. Together with her husband and a one-year-old child, she got in a traffic accident. The car overturned a few times. "I can remember that after the accident I realized I couldn't feel the arms or legs, and I could hear the sound of dripping blood. Then was the surgery, a month at the intensive care unit. The neurosurgeons were very afraid for my life, they "fixed" me in the Philadelphia collar and told everyone not to touch me. This is how a bedsore was developing. The doctors were reasonably afraid, a week after the surgery, I managed to present a cardiac arrest. They did bring me back," - Katya said. Katya’s case is the most complicated for Metelitsa now. Since mid-November, the team has been fighting to have Katya get a surgery to reconstruct the cervical spine. The structure has been unstable. So far, all clinics have refused. - The "last hand rule" in medicine does exist. We can understand that no one wants to correct other people's mistakes. If the surgery is not successful, then in terms of reputation and statistics the responsibility will fall on the doctor who made the last surgery, — Svetlana said. — Without a surgery Katya will remain paralyzed forever and her chances will be very low. In case of a surgery, she will at first sit in a wheelchair, then we will be able to put her on feet and she will at least walk with a walker. Katya continues working. It is extremely important to remain of demand, she said. She takes close to heart the complicated cases and the people’s pain, that she can see in the disorders on MRI images, which colleges sent to her awaiting annotations. Her communication with the son is online. At home, in Tomsk, the cameras are very helpful when they learn poems or songs. - What will I do first thing when I manage to walk? I’ll go to the stadium. I even can imagine how it looks, - Katya said. Bring back to feet within one year - Getting back to feet is not the objective. I can have a dead body stand, - said Andrey Samara, Svetlana’s husband. He is Metelitsa’s vice president, a coach and the team’s methods chief expert. - Every person must have a goal. Why to get to feet. That goal must be very clear. For example, Sergey wants to take the daughter to her first school lesson on September 1. Nikita could not make any progress until he got adamant he wanted to be a doctor, a rehab specialist, - and he started working hard. Many patients give in, whenever they learn that hard work takes years. People tend to get used to the new conditions and put up with remaining inside those situations. - Sergey was practicing rehab at home, but he was doing only what he could imagine. Noteworthy, there are very many aspects. Any rehabilitation must be ongoing. In case of anything wrong or quick, the process may become ineffective. A person may get stuck at a certain stage, without further progress. Very often people begin training and then face vegetation crises: when lifted, they may faint, - Andrey said. Every person working at Metelitsa continues education. Every specialist is universal. To train patients, to heap up the snow in the yard, to cook dinner. Their attitude to food is very special - in a family style. Practically all patients coming to Metelitsa are exhausted. Every new kilo matters. - A first-grade disabled, injured at the age of 20 and remaining at home, means the state support worth millions just in pensions, medicines and so forth. The disabled "pulls" from regular life at least another family member. In the old age, the person has to stay at a psycho-neurological facility, - Svetlana said. - Help us with the funds, and we will bring such a person back to feet within one year, unless there’s no spinal cord rupture. The person will be able to work, to have a family and kids. Metelitsa’s dream is to have a rehab center for 50 patients, which could receive free and commercial services. They have unique experiences, a team, and the successful results of 300 people, whom they have taught to walk. But they do not have money. - One of the tricks is how to make a post on social networks so that it does not sound pleading - "we are so miserable and unhappy." I never post pictures, where could be seen diapers, or where the patients look gloomy. The rate of pain and suffering is so high in the society. People have to face so many own problems, that they may not have strength to see how miserable other people are, - Svetlana said. - We need just elementary things: detergent, groceries, diapers, catheters. And also - a strategic partner who will be able to help with [obtaining of] a land plot for the construction of a center. Happy stories On the first floor is the kitchen, which is never idle. Somebody there is cooking, or giving a consultation, or continues talks. Doggies are fussing around the feet. Somebody is making coffee. Sometimes, donors come to the center - mostly individuals. A regular family-style life goes on. For many people this is their first true family. - Why? - Svetlana thinks for a moment. - You know, I can’t stand anything broken. I need to have it fixed. Nobody will do it if not us. We know a few children, who have been born because at some point we had helped their parents. They are our children, too. A few happy stories are more impressive than the other 300. Lidiya. A drunk driver crashed her car, when she was waiting for the green light. Her car turned upside down and caught fire. Happily, the fire fighters were nearby. The girl was taken to hospital: a fractured pelvis, injured legs, a broken arm. A few complicated surgeries followed, Svetlana said. A year at hospitals. The result: inactive leg (suspected pelvis complex injury) and unbending elbow. The girl was unable to walk or take care of herself. Metelitsa organized for the girl a complex of consultations. Lida spent a week at the clinic and continued the rehabilitation at Metelitsa for three months. She began to walk, the elbow improvement was 50%. With the support from Metelitsa, she recovered and entered a university to become a lawyer. With the injuries she had, Lidiya could not continue working as desired - a cook. Lidiya is married with a daughter. "Or, for example, Artyom. At the age of 30, he lost both legs in an accident. Eight surgeries. His friends have addressed us," Svetlana said. The psychologist kept persuading Artyom: "You can do everything, everything is in your hands, the sooner you get into the stroller, the better! Swing, train, don't be shy of anyone. You are the most important thing. As for the car, you may have it equipped with a manual drive." "We’ve done everything we could," Svetlana told us. - Igor’s family has done everything possible. We’ve addressed everything - from father’s shock to the phantom pain - and we did it." Artyom uses both a wheelchair and a car, he has returned to the work. He has got married, and now has a daughter. You are incredible, people! "All of a sudden, today. I was standing, and here’s a step forward! All by myself! Yes! Four years of wheelchairs, sticks and crutches! Four years of tortures! Guys, friends, everyone who’s helped me to get up! We’ve done it! I’m not depressed or smashed! I’ve survived, and I’m with you now! A few clumsy steps - it’s beyond me! You are incredible, people!" this is what Kristina Lukina, Metelitsa’s client and a staff member posted. Metelitsa does not keep secret its progress. The team trains and helps those who need their experience. However, not everyone has similar success, and Svetlana often hears the question-What’s your secret? Her answer is very simple and Christian. Love. Read more