4-year-old boy sews toy snowmen in hospital to earn money for treatment of leukemia

Alena Semilet, even two years later, believes that a miracle happened to her and her family on New Year’s Eve 2016.

It all started very tragically. Her little son Andrei suffered from otitis media, and his lymph nodes became inflamed. As a result, doctors made a terrible diagnosis - blood cancer. In his native Cherkasy, doctors could do nothing to help the boy. Desperate parents had two options for continuing treatment. One is expensive (115 thousand euros) in Germany, the other is in neighboring Belarus.

However, even at the Gomel Center for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology, treatment cost a colossal amount of money for the family - 32.5 thousand euros. The Semilet couple decided to sell their apartment to save their son.

The boy was brought to Gomel. For a long time he could not understand why they kept him here, did not allow him to return home, go to kindergarten, and did not allow him to go for walks. In order to somehow keep the child occupied, Alena brought various crafts to her son’s room. Together with Andrei and his grandmother, we made the first snowmen using rice, fabric and markers.

Alena sent several photos of toys to her friends via the Internet. My friends liked the snowmen and asked me to make one for them too. Not for free. Alena agreed and did not even realize that she saved her son in this way.

Friends of the Semilet family shared photos of the toys on social networks. Many users became interested in these crafts. Alena began to receive orders from many countries: from Israel to the Baltic States, from Russia to Germany. In just four days, five thousand euros were transferred to Andrey’s mother’s card. Everyone really wanted to help the child by buying his snowmen. According to Alena, she was very touched by the letter about the order for one of the schools at once one hundred toys. The teachers wanted to show their students how important care and mutual assistance are.

There were so many orders that the woman was even afraid to go on social networks. But people still sent money and just waited in line. Within a few days, the entire required amount was collected. The boy did not stop making snowmen even during chemotherapy.

Now Andrey is already at home. It is too early to talk about a complete recovery. He will need to visit the radiation medicine center in Belarus more than once, but the worst is behind him. He doesn't attend kindergarten yet, but that doesn't stop him from having a bunch of friends. To the question: “What do you want to become when you grow up?”, the boy answers: “a doctor.”