Karol is 8 years old and has just started school. On his own two feet, and not long ago he couldn’t walk. Recently he was barely alive because his own spine was suffocating him. But when help was found, and good people – including viewers of TVN’s “Fakty” – added PLN 3 million, Karol got a chance.
Karol Stadnik just went to school on his own two feet. It is true that there is a year’s delay, because he is already eight years old, but it is a great success for him, his parents, doctors and everyone who helped with it, including the viewers of “Fakty” TVN.
Five years ago, there was a big collection for the boy. Almost 150,000 people collected PLN 3 million. – Thanks to people, he managed to pull himself together and five years ago in July he underwent open chest surgery in the United States. A life-saving operation, thanks to which there is no need for a tracheostomy tube – says Ewa Stadnik, Karol’s mother. The “Fakty” TVN team met five years ago with the Stadnik family at the airport – on the day of departure to Chicago.
READ MORE: A three-year-old lives in constant pain. However, there is hope for help
The last million for the child’s treatment was collected in three daystvn24
Foreign aid
Karol suffers from Beals syndrome. He was born with a deformed spine that pressed on internal organs, especially the trachea. He was at risk of bleeding and suffocation. He didn’t walk or talk.
– The Americans found a way to properly deal with the issue of the trachea, or one could say, they repaired it because it was deformed. They removed some of the blood vessels and bypassed blood to the brain through a different route, and the so-called “side effect” was that the tracheostomy tube was removed, so he could talk again – adds Mariusz Stadnik, the boy’s father.
Years of fighting
Eight years of Charles’ life were eight years of fighting to live, talk and walk. He is walking after another operation performed by doctors in Germany.
Polish doctors from Wrocław are straightening his spine. – A week ago, Karol had retractable rods that had already been extended as much as possible and the doctor announced that he would give us a date for the surgery within a month or two – says the boy’s mother.
Karol will also have to learn to eat normally. At the moment he has no sense of appetite, he is fed partly directly into the stomach. That’s why, among other things, he’s so slim.
But the parents are sure that since they have already been through so much, they will be able to overcome this too. They dream that their son will one day start an independent life. Maybe he’ll become an IT specialist. – Ultimately, this independence should consist in the fact that he is, lives, lives independently, fully independently, is financially independent. First of all, of course, he is relatively healthy – explains the boy’s father.
Main photo source: Fakty TVN