From Medicine to Healing Touch
Dr. Natalia’s Inspiring Journey into Massage Therapy and Disability Care
PART 3
Home massage treatments were an essential part of the start-up. Building confidence between the parents and Dr. Natalia grew naturally. Her reputation in the realm of special needs children spread quickly.
The polyclinic room was remodeled and became a clinic. Within a short time, MUCH approved two more massage therapists. Between the three massage therapists, ten children were being treated daily. Mission Ukraine Children’s Hope was moving forward in a new and exciting direction.
One morning, there was a knock at Mark’s apartment door. Five children stood outside the door with sober looks on their faces. They had news about a child who was very special to Mark. His translator, Ira, happened to be with him, so she was able to help with communication.
Mark’s little friend Karina, twelve years old, had been drinking the night before on their Independence Day holiday, and had become drunk. She was living in a dormitory house on the fifth floor. Her friends left her by the window in her apartment and went to the community bathroom down the hall. When they returned, she had fallen out of the window. She was taken to the hospital ICU. She had a broken neck and was unconscious.
Within a few weeks, Karina began receiving rehabilitation treatment at a spinal cord injury sanatorium in Saki, Crimea. Dr. Natalia offered to be Karina’s nurse if MUCH could pay her the month’s wage. MUCH provided her wage and whatever else was needed, and Karina was sent to the sanatorium.
Dr. Natalia needed to know more to be Karina’s nurse. But the opportunity to learn was a luxury she could not pass up. All of the rehabilitation equipment, much of it state-of-the-art, paralleled her understanding of muscle rehabilitation. The incredible fortune was talking with other doctors and specialists, eye-to-eye.
When Mark visited on the third week, Dr. Natalia showed him everything the facility had to offer, from the parallel walking bars to the renowned mud bath and everything in between. She would take all of this knowledge with her to add to the MUCH clinic in Illichevsk.
Back in Illichevsk, Karina was living in the hospital. Dr. Natalia and Mark would visit Karina when time permitted. The situation brought Dr. Natalia to tears. As a mother of three children, the youngest twelve, this situation hit home.
Our people, and those of the city medical profession, were working on where Karina, a dependent quadriplegic, would live. There were many offers, but she insisted on living with her mother and younger sister. Neither mother nor younger sister was prepared to change their life to meet Karina’s daily needs.
A year or so later, a boy who lived down the hall began to visit her. In the following year, they married and had a child. Karina remains quadriplegic. I will not say everything turned out happily ever after, although it did turn out better than I imagined.
