Vanya is in rehab!

Vanya Kotov, 1 year 5 months, Krasnodar Diagnosis: Type I Spinal Muscular Atrophy He needs rehabilitation treatment in the NeiroKids Center in Moscow. Ivan - "The Grace of God," is the traditional interpretation of this name. People believe that Ivan is a gift from God to his parents. On August 3, 2020, the Kotovs family from Krasnodar was gifted a beautiful, long-awaited son, Vanyusha. In November 2020, Vanya's parents first heard about the terrible diagnosis - type 1 SMA, the most aggressive form of spinal muscular atrophy. In SMA, the SMN1 gene is damaged. It is a severe infantile disease. Children have muscle atrophy, paralysis, and consequent death. As a result, the person does not produce the protein needed for the motoneurons to survive. Deficiency of this protein leads to atrophy. Hundreds of thousands of motoneurons die off each day in a child's body, and the baby loses the ability to move. Because of the underdeveloped muscles there is respiratory failure or the heart muscles simply stop working. Now Vanya cannot hold his head or turn over, he is breathing through NIVL and eats through gastrostoma (artificial opening in the wall of stomach, which communicates with external environment and is made for feeding a patient when his feeding cannot be done naturally). A treatment exists. Zolgensma drug. It replaces the "broken" gene with a healthy copy. In order to keep Vanechka's body in a condition that would allow for gene therapy, the baby needs to undergo rehabilitation. Vanyusha is currently undergoing such rehabilitation at the NeiroKids Center in Moscow. Thanks to the work of experienced specialists the boy is stronger, his chest has become stronger, contractures of joints have decreased, the range of movement of arms and legs has increased, and what is the most important, specialists promise that the boy will have a good chance to swallow reflex again, which means he will be able to eat independently. But for that, rehabilitation must not be stopped! My dear magicians, Vanya has to live! The coveted shot is waiting for the boy. And very soon Vanya will be pleasing us with his new skills, just like Katya Rubtsova, Miya Kuznetsova, Artem Sarmashov and Ruslan Vavilov are doing!