Fighting for Life: “I couldn’t bury my daughter alive”
Yulia Kirnitski and Janar Amankulov, ArmeniaNow Interns

ArmeniaNow
04Jue2004

The little girl who has few reasons to smile is holding a ball that
says: “Smile ! Jesus loves you!”

Liana, age 10, was not expected to be alive by now. She has acute
myelogenous leucosis, one of the most fatal forms of leukemia.

Four months ago doctors told her father that the girl was too sick to
even bother staying in hospital. They told him to take her home. To
die.

“I couldn’t bury my daughter alive,” says Aram Givargizov, Liana’s
father. “I knew I had to do everything to save my child and I insisted
on her hospitalization.”

The disease has completely destroyed the girl’s bone marrow and
the level of white blood cells was 10 ten times below normal,
says the doctor who treats Liana at the Institute of Hematology,
Samvel Agatelyan.

In her first month of treatment, she had 25 blood transfusions because
of non-stop bleeding from her gums.

Liana lives with her parents and two sisters, in Upper Dvin, a village
of about 3,000 in the Artashat region, some 35 kilometers south of
Yerevan. Her father is Assyrian; her mother is Armenian.

At the end of last year the girl caught cold. There is no hospital
in Upper Dvin. There’s only one doctor, who examined Liana and said
she had a usual case of flu.

But when Liana’s health worsened, her parents took her to doctors in
Artashat. There, the discovery of her true condition was devastating
and incomprehensible.

“She never fell ill when she was little,” recalls Anna Khachaturyan,
Liana’s mother.

The doctor says that if she’d been brought to the hospital a week
later, it would have been impossible to save the girl.

Only 15 percent of patients with her diagnosis are cured. Intensive
treatment lasts a year and a half and consists of four courses. On
whole, patients have to be under a doctor’s observation for five
years to get the disease to a manageable level.

After the first course of treatment the girl’s state significantly
improved. The mother is happy saying, “Lianik’s analysis is clear.”

Agatelyan explains that “tissues of bone marrow have completely
recovered but there still are cancerous cells in the organism.”

After a month of being confined to bed the doctor allowed Liana to
walk, but not long. The first thing she did was ask her mother to
take her to a church and then to a merry-go-round. In the street
the girl never takes off her blue hat. It covers the balding effects
of chemotherapy.

Liana says that during the long days spent in hospital she likes
most of all to draw. Her drawings now decorate the pale walls of the
hospital ward. She especially likes drawing flowers and animals.

The first course of treatment cost $1000, says Anna. For a family
dependent on a teacher’s salary (an average of about $30 a month)
and whatever the garden produces to sell in market, the amount is
inconceivable.

But while money is hard to come by, the support of friends has
been plenty.

When villagers found out about Liana’s disease, they came to the
hospital to give blood. They also collected money. Anna says there was
a lot of support from the priest of Upper Dvin village, father Isahak.

Just recently Liana has started the second course of treatment. The
girl’s father says if they don’t manage to find money to continue
the treatment they’ll have to sell their only cow.

But giving up the family’s source of income would be a price worth
paying, especially seeing the improvement Liana has made in recent
weeks.

She remains in hospital. But these days, Liana can sometimes go
outside. She plays with her sisters and other kids at the hospital. And
the smiles in her room are not just on the ball in her hand.

(If you would like to send a letter of encouragement, or help Liana
and her family, write to us at info@armeinanow.com)