Special report: other people’s stories. And happiness can be special…
"If you do not dare to change today, tomorrow will be the same as yesterday" - this slogan Oleksandra Posivnych, the heroine of our today’s history, posted on her Facebook page. But for her it is not just words: if Oleksandra had not created a new life every day, step by step, she would now be at home with her sick son from birth, without communication, alone with problems, barely refraining from falling into the abyss of despair. However, Lesya chose the path of struggle for the happy future of the child, which brought pleasure from life and gave comfort to other parents of special children.
And happiness can be special…
In his youth, fate seems to have been merciful to Lesand: a charming woman from Lviv together with her beloved husband Andriy moved to the capital to gradually build her everyday family comfort. But it didn’t turn out quite as expected: Lesya had a hard time "grinding" to Kyiv. At first she found one job, changed it to another and seemed to be stunned by how long distances of the metropolis consume the time of her life. Her relatives and friends, warm memories and a piece of her heart remained in sweet Lviv. But another year passed, and the career and the vicissitudes of resettlement faded into the background: Lesya was expecting the first, so desirable baby…
… Ten years have passed since then, but even now, remembering her son’s birthday, Lesya repeats one thing: it was a shock, a continuous shock, I didn’t understand anything, I didn’t feel anything but shock! Her pregnancy was normal, there was no suspicion that the child was developing defects, and when the doctor, taking her newborn son, began to ask: "What about the child?", Lesya did not immediately understand - and what could be wrong ? The boy did not cry at once, he had narrow eyes and a wide nose, on the back of the head is noticeably small, the size of a quail egg, the formation - as it turned out, a craniocerebral hernia. Horrified that the child was unhealthy and seemed to have serious developmental disabilities, Lesya lost the feeling of pain. She dreamed of motherhood and was not ready for such a terrible turn of events. And here the next day the nurse, cleaning in the ward, threw with indifferent cruelty: "Yes, you have a down, leave him"… And on the third day after birth, she and her husband "consulted" a geneticist. She said that the child was born with a genetic defect, but there is no pronounced syndrome and therefore no prognosis for the child’s development can not give. "If you want to give birth again, you need to pass genetic tests in Germany," said the geneticist, who also hinted that the child could be sent to an orphanage. It seemed to the mother that the whole world was pressing on her with the words: "give, give the child…". Now Lesya says that she does not condemn women who, stunned by adversity, take such a difficult step and give up their child. Some of them are immediately left alone with their own misfortune: abandoned by their husbands, without relatives, in a foreign city. "It’s unbearable," says Lesya, "and she remembers gratefully. as her own husband Andrew did at the time: he said without a moment’s hesitation that they were taking their son home. Thus, a new life of three began for the Posivnych family, together with their son Pavlyk. Life on the border between high hopes for the recovery of the son and despair that hopes are not justified…
At the age of two months, Pavlyk underwent surgery to remove a craniocerebral hernia. The child was taken all possible tests and found that only the brain was damaged, in general, the child is viable. None of the specialists told my mother about rehabilitation therapy - they themselves did not know what to recommend. Lesya recalls: "A local pediatrician from the clinic came to us, her hands were shaking and she just said, ’Mommy, don’t cry, just breastfeed, or the milk will be lost.’ And I really needed at least some advice, and she told me: "do not cry, everything will be fine." How is it normal when a child is not like everyone else? ” The first real help to the family was provided by a neurologist from the Children’s Welfare Center, who advised to contact the Kozyavkin Clinic, Early Rehabilitation Department. And already there Pavlyk began to learn to sit, move a little, react to the world around him. Besides, parents with the same children were nearby; A psychologist worked with the adults, and Lesia no longer seemed to be left alone with their plight, and it was realized that rehabilitation led to gradual, though sometimes very slow, progress.
Now Lesya bitterly remembers that five or seven years ago she had too optimistic expectations. She really wanted Pavlyk, like other children, to learn to walk after a year, to speak at the age of three, and to study at the age of seven. She says that it is as if she has set herself a flag, to which, as to the top, she went, and when she realized that the child is not developing at that pace, she dropped her hands and thought: "Everything, there is nothing more I can do." However, I thought, and continued to do so. When the child was one year old, she learned about the methods of home therapy. A coach from Poland taught her and several other mothers of special children to perform exercises for visual, auditory, muscular and intellectual development of the child. The problem was that each mother needed two assistants to do home therapy. And where to look for them? The women went to one of the local temples, where the priest made an announcement and asked the pilgrims to help - and the volunteers responded! They came to work in the morning and in the evening after work and worked with their mothers with their children. The place for classes was provided by the public organization of the disabled "Family".
When Pavlyk was four years old, he began to attend a group in the "Family", which worked with children according to the Montessori method, and Lesya herself actively participated in the volunteer and community activities of the "Family". Once upon a time in Lviv, she dreamed of being a volunteer, devoting her free time to good deeds, but her life turned so that she became a mentor to volunteers. Young people from Europe have come to the Family to work with special children and gain life experience. Lesya says that after working with their children, the volunteers return home as adults. And although at first they are frightened by snot, saliva, but, having settled down, they love children so sincerely, so sincerely treat them that - Lesya is sure - their good deeds in the future will surely return a boomerang of someone’s true care and love.
Today Lesya feels at home in the Family. The "Family" was once started by parents of special children, who found teachers and premises on their own, and set up a center where children can be cared for from nine to five o’clock in the afternoon. While teachers work with children, take them for walks, teach self-care and communication, parents get the opportunity to work or spend some time on personal matters. Lesya devotes her time to community service, she is a member of the Board of the Family, conducts a joint project with Auchan, organizes master classes with children with disabilities. Her Pavlyk is well socialized, he has been accustomed to volunteers since he was a child and enjoys visiting the center, along with twelve other special children.
Lesya has launched a new project "Kid of Kindness" in the "Family", which will allow teenagers and adults with special needs to acquire some professional skills. A food technologist by profession, she dreams of a mini-bakery and cooking, which will employ high-functioning students of the "Family". However, Lesya understands that her son is unlikely to be able to join such work, so he intends to open a day center for teenagers and adults for children like Pavlyk.
Lesya has long understood that if you do not fight for the future of your own and other special children, you will again find yourself in four walls, alone with problems. It is possible that in 5-10 years the state will solve the issue of decent social security for sick children, but will it be too late? Lesya is surprised that a child attending a boarding school is allocated almost ten thousand hryvnias a month, but there is still no mechanism for financial assistance to public organizations of the disabled. If the state took more care of special children, parents could get a little more financial freedom and could hire the best psychologists and rehabilitators to work with their children. But today parents are forced to take care of their children themselves.
Lesin Pavlyk was ten years old. He cannot study, does not serve himself, does not speak and communicate with relatives only with the help of special Pex cards that visualize the action. But the boy subtly feels the melody of the sounds and loves folk songs, which his mother sings with pleasure for him. In the evenings, Pavlyk is waiting for his dad to return from work to play with him in the constructor or listen to books that his parents usually read to him with a special intonation.
Ten years of fighting their son’s illness gave them special courage and wisdom: they learned to live without any ephemeral hopes and developed a recipe for their own family happiness: to develop a child and do what she likes and brings joy.
Photo from the personal archive of the family
And happiness can be special…
In his youth, fate seems to have been merciful to Lesand: a charming woman from Lviv together with her beloved husband Andriy moved to the capital to gradually build her everyday family comfort. But it didn’t turn out quite as expected: Lesya had a hard time "grinding" to Kyiv. At first she found one job, changed it to another and seemed to be stunned by how long distances of the metropolis consume the time of her life. Her relatives and friends, warm memories and a piece of her heart remained in sweet Lviv. But another year passed, and the career and the vicissitudes of resettlement faded into the background: Lesya was expecting the first, so desirable baby…
… Ten years have passed since then, but even now, remembering her son’s birthday, Lesya repeats one thing: it was a shock, a continuous shock, I didn’t understand anything, I didn’t feel anything but shock! Her pregnancy was normal, there was no suspicion that the child was developing defects, and when the doctor, taking her newborn son, began to ask: "What about the child?", Lesya did not immediately understand - and what could be wrong ? The boy did not cry at once, he had narrow eyes and a wide nose, on the back of the head is noticeably small, the size of a quail egg, the formation - as it turned out, a craniocerebral hernia. Horrified that the child was unhealthy and seemed to have serious developmental disabilities, Lesya lost the feeling of pain. She dreamed of motherhood and was not ready for such a terrible turn of events. And here the next day the nurse, cleaning in the ward, threw with indifferent cruelty: "Yes, you have a down, leave him"… And on the third day after birth, she and her husband "consulted" a geneticist. She said that the child was born with a genetic defect, but there is no pronounced syndrome and therefore no prognosis for the child’s development can not give. "If you want to give birth again, you need to pass genetic tests in Germany," said the geneticist, who also hinted that the child could be sent to an orphanage. It seemed to the mother that the whole world was pressing on her with the words: "give, give the child…". Now Lesya says that she does not condemn women who, stunned by adversity, take such a difficult step and give up their child. Some of them are immediately left alone with their own misfortune: abandoned by their husbands, without relatives, in a foreign city. "It’s unbearable," says Lesya, "and she remembers gratefully. as her own husband Andrew did at the time: he said without a moment’s hesitation that they were taking their son home. Thus, a new life of three began for the Posivnych family, together with their son Pavlyk. Life on the border between high hopes for the recovery of the son and despair that hopes are not justified…
At the age of two months, Pavlyk underwent surgery to remove a craniocerebral hernia. The child was taken all possible tests and found that only the brain was damaged, in general, the child is viable. None of the specialists told my mother about rehabilitation therapy - they themselves did not know what to recommend. Lesya recalls: "A local pediatrician from the clinic came to us, her hands were shaking and she just said, ’Mommy, don’t cry, just breastfeed, or the milk will be lost.’ And I really needed at least some advice, and she told me: "do not cry, everything will be fine." How is it normal when a child is not like everyone else? ” The first real help to the family was provided by a neurologist from the Children’s Welfare Center, who advised to contact the Kozyavkin Clinic, Early Rehabilitation Department. And already there Pavlyk began to learn to sit, move a little, react to the world around him. Besides, parents with the same children were nearby; A psychologist worked with the adults, and Lesia no longer seemed to be left alone with their plight, and it was realized that rehabilitation led to gradual, though sometimes very slow, progress.
Now Lesya bitterly remembers that five or seven years ago she had too optimistic expectations. She really wanted Pavlyk, like other children, to learn to walk after a year, to speak at the age of three, and to study at the age of seven. She says that it is as if she has set herself a flag, to which, as to the top, she went, and when she realized that the child is not developing at that pace, she dropped her hands and thought: "Everything, there is nothing more I can do." However, I thought, and continued to do so. When the child was one year old, she learned about the methods of home therapy. A coach from Poland taught her and several other mothers of special children to perform exercises for visual, auditory, muscular and intellectual development of the child. The problem was that each mother needed two assistants to do home therapy. And where to look for them? The women went to one of the local temples, where the priest made an announcement and asked the pilgrims to help - and the volunteers responded! They came to work in the morning and in the evening after work and worked with their mothers with their children. The place for classes was provided by the public organization of the disabled "Family".
When Pavlyk was four years old, he began to attend a group in the "Family", which worked with children according to the Montessori method, and Lesya herself actively participated in the volunteer and community activities of the "Family". Once upon a time in Lviv, she dreamed of being a volunteer, devoting her free time to good deeds, but her life turned so that she became a mentor to volunteers. Young people from Europe have come to the Family to work with special children and gain life experience. Lesya says that after working with their children, the volunteers return home as adults. And although at first they are frightened by snot, saliva, but, having settled down, they love children so sincerely, so sincerely treat them that - Lesya is sure - their good deeds in the future will surely return a boomerang of someone’s true care and love.
Today Lesya feels at home in the Family. The "Family" was once started by parents of special children, who found teachers and premises on their own, and set up a center where children can be cared for from nine to five o’clock in the afternoon. While teachers work with children, take them for walks, teach self-care and communication, parents get the opportunity to work or spend some time on personal matters. Lesya devotes her time to community service, she is a member of the Board of the Family, conducts a joint project with Auchan, organizes master classes with children with disabilities. Her Pavlyk is well socialized, he has been accustomed to volunteers since he was a child and enjoys visiting the center, along with twelve other special children.
Lesya has launched a new project "Kid of Kindness" in the "Family", which will allow teenagers and adults with special needs to acquire some professional skills. A food technologist by profession, she dreams of a mini-bakery and cooking, which will employ high-functioning students of the "Family". However, Lesya understands that her son is unlikely to be able to join such work, so he intends to open a day center for teenagers and adults for children like Pavlyk.
Lesya has long understood that if you do not fight for the future of your own and other special children, you will again find yourself in four walls, alone with problems. It is possible that in 5-10 years the state will solve the issue of decent social security for sick children, but will it be too late? Lesya is surprised that a child attending a boarding school is allocated almost ten thousand hryvnias a month, but there is still no mechanism for financial assistance to public organizations of the disabled. If the state took more care of special children, parents could get a little more financial freedom and could hire the best psychologists and rehabilitators to work with their children. But today parents are forced to take care of their children themselves.
Lesin Pavlyk was ten years old. He cannot study, does not serve himself, does not speak and communicate with relatives only with the help of special Pex cards that visualize the action. But the boy subtly feels the melody of the sounds and loves folk songs, which his mother sings with pleasure for him. In the evenings, Pavlyk is waiting for his dad to return from work to play with him in the constructor or listen to books that his parents usually read to him with a special intonation.
Ten years of fighting their son’s illness gave them special courage and wisdom: they learned to live without any ephemeral hopes and developed a recipe for their own family happiness: to develop a child and do what she likes and brings joy.
Photo from the personal archive of the family