Misha was born in 2007. Since birth he has had severe cerebral palsy. Misha does not walk, does not speak and is completely dependent on those around him.

“I wish I could feel, even for a moment, what Misha feels”, - his father said sadly.

And yet not so long ago Misha had everything a child needs to be happy: a good big family, a loving brother and a mother and father who took the children travelling, spoiled them and bought them any toy...

But one day, in an instant, all of it collapsed.

Misha’s father – an experienced swimmer – made a fatal mistake in 2011: he dived without judging the depth of the built-up bank. As a result he broke his spine.

Neither the emergency evacuation nor a series of operations helped – Misha’s father Andrii Pedanov was left 95% paralysed...

Before the tragedy Andrii Pedanov was a silver medallist of Ukraine in swimming, a master of sports, a candidate of sciences with three university degrees, a lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko National University and the owner of a business selling computer discs and consumables.

But after the tragedy... Misha’s mother left the family, taking his younger brother Illia with her. And she left Misha with his paralysed father.

To look after Misha and his father Andrii, Misha’s grandfather and grandmother moved for good to a village near Kyiv. They left their home in the Luhansk region and were never able to visit it, because three years later the house ended up in occupied territory.

For 11 years now every day of the Pedanov family has meant exhausting exercises, dressings, tubes, plasters, bandages and various medicines, including painkillers for father and son... Every month the family spends from 17 to 23 thousand hryvnias on medicines and care.

...When the first autumn of this war came – cold and dark – a generator at first helped the family in their house. But it broke down. The repair cost 11 000. And that is the whole family’s pension for a month! And they cannot manage without it: no electricity means no water and no heating.

Misha’s father Andrii never loses heart and works tirelessly. Already almost completely paralysed, he mastered the computer. And every day, overcoming the pain and ignoring his wounds and the doctors’ ban, he sits down at the monitor to spend several hours there in a row and earn money for the family. One must go forward! That has always been the motto of Misha’s father.

He works a couple of hours a day, for as long as he has the strength to sit.  He managed to take a quarter of a teaching post at a school online. He teaches psychology – at the moment he tells children and parents about the war and about ways of coping with the fears and anxieties it brings.

Misha follows his father’s example: incredibly active, he sometimes wakes at 5-6 in the morning and “asks” to do his “exercises” as soon as possible, and to practise writing and drawing. He shows this to his grandmother with his eyes. The daily set of exercises was designed for him by his father – this is exactly what he taught students at the Shevchenko University, in theory and in practice, before his injury.

Besides the exercises Misha needs massages every day. At 15 he is growing fast, and his muscles and tendons “cannot keep up”. Each such massage is another 400 hryvnias less from the Pedanov family pensions.

Misha is already 1 m 65 tall, and his grandmother carries him. She is the only one in the family without a disability. Andrii is cared for by his father. Neither of them is getting younger. And to ease the family’s burden, Misha’s father tries to work twice as hard.

Any help from you can make a real difference to the life of the Pedanov family.
Ways to help can be found here.