The relationship between children and toys is magical, unique, indescribable. It is enough to give a toy to children and it changes their day. With these lessons learned, the Sowing Hope Youth Movement of the Artillery Regiment of the Holguin Military Region wanted to bring hope to the Oncohematology ward of the Pediatric Hospital Octavio de la Concepción de la Pedraja and make the 14 children and their families hospitalized there forget for a brief moment the deep pain and fears that only those families who have been touched by cancer know about.
That is why, according to Major Keyla Gonzalez Diaz, head of political-ideological work of the Artillery Regiment of the Holguin Military Region, “the young people motivated in salute to the 63rd anniversary of the Organization of José Martí Pioneers (OPJM) and the 62nd of the Young Communist League (UJC) have come here because children are the ones who know how to love, as our José Martí taught us”.
“We came to leave a small present on behalf of the young people of the artillery of the Military Region and we want that the actions do not end here, they are simply the starting point, to also reach the homes of children without family support in a second moment”, and certainly, the toys delivered personally in the hands of the children were very well received, even those who because of their compromised health condition could not attend the meeting, were taken to their bed. Among the beneficiaries was the teenager Yosvanis Céspedes Reyes, who was diagnosed about four months ago with a non Hopkins Lymphoma.
On the occasion he said: “Thanks to the very good medical team that we have, I am very grateful to them and to everyone. I have received very good treatment, care and attention. Thanks to them I am getting out of everything. I feel very grateful that they have come all this way to give us a moment of happiness. I am very happy with everything they did, I am grateful”.
Dailin Toledo, mother of little Diego Torres, who was diagnosed with a liver tumor at the age of seven months, was deeply moved by the human gesture towards her son and expressed that “these gestures mean happiness for our children, a joy that they have in the midst of so much sadness, so to speak, of so many punctures. And it is an immense joy that they feel every time they have a nice gesture, when they think of them, when they are given something that makes them feel happy”.
Dailin says that in her son’s case he had a noticeable improvement, to the point of being discharged from the hospital when he was a year and a half old, but now he has suffered from the disease again. He has been admitted to the hospital for a week now and on April 4 he started chemotherapy again.The Oncohematology ward at the hospital facility is a regional service that attends children of all ages from the provinces of Granma, Las Tunas, Guantánamo and Holguín, being one of the ones with the highest survival rates in the country.
In that sense, Elizabeth Mir Quintana, head nurse of the ward explained that they are a group committed to the health of children. “We attend to those diagnosed with oncological and hematological diseases, including leukemia, lymphomas and various types of cancer. We assist patients of all ages, whether they are infants, adolescents, transitional.”
“The children really assimilate the treatment with enormous strength and with energies that make them face the disease in a very positive way. Any activity that is done for them is a great thing because they have a long stay in the service. That is why we are happy that these activities are taking place. This also influences their treatment, their improvement, their favorable evolution.
So, because of their long stay in the institution, these patients are very grateful for altruistic gestures such as these, which they enjoy and which contribute to their recovery.
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