Meet Christina Savova
Treasure Life would like to introduce you to Christina Savova
On May 8, 2014 Teodora and Hristo Savova welcomed their baby girls, Christina and Catherine. These were their miracle babies after In Vitro Fertilization gave them the gift of these beautiful children. They would join their brother Alexander, 3 years old.
They were born 6 weeks early. When babies are born prematurely, many of their organs are not fully developed which puts them at risk for different diseases. For Christina this meant Necrotizing Enterocolitis. The symptoms for this disease can be similar to other digestive conditions and may vary in severity. Researchers are still looking for an answer as to what’s causing the bowel to necrotize and die. For children diagnosed with this disease 70% don’t survive, 20% don’t live long, 10% thrive and only ½ % recover fully.
Doctors diagnosed her at 5 days old when she was having trouble feeding and had a swollen belly. They were born at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and Christina was transferred to the Stollery while Catherine remained at the Royal Alexandra until she was able to go home. Dealing with a sick child is hard but having 2 at separate hospitals is even tougher.
On May 14th, 2014 Christina had her first surgery. She lost 30% of her bowel, had an ostomy and the team almost sacrificed her left hand in their attempts to save her life. She spent about three weeks in NICU recovering from the surgery and fighting different complications. On June 6th Christina was transferred to unit 4C in the Stollery. She had a bunch of different difficulties and complications afterwards, needed a central line to be put in allowing her to receive her meds and food. On September 3rd Christina had an ostomy reversal and started healing much faster “being put back together”. On December 17th, 2014 Christina went home for the first time.
Her journey with the Stollery Children’s Hospital is not over, she requires numerous hospitalizations for different infections and challenges with her health but this is how the Savova’s were introduced to the Treasure beads. Each bead shows a step in the journey with their kids and their challenges. It shows how worthy the kids are and their dedication to them as well. Each bead shows how they became stronger, better, more understanding of other people’s pain and disappointment, ready to fight and win. The Savova’s are keeping a list of the obstacles their kids are overcoming in their journals and on which day and for what reason they got a bead. For a while they had the both of their daughters in the Stollery and being able to express the stress and battle they went thru is very important for them. Sometimes when Teodora is looking at their lines she is reminded of the reality “This is happening to us and we are managing it”. She sees the bead lines as a wonderful illustration of love, hope, strength, challenges and little miracles on an everyday basis.
When I met Teodora I met a woman with immense courage, strength and a wonderfully positive attitude. Teodora has Hashimoto’s Disease which causes numerous infections and forces her to be extra careful with her own health, her son Alex has developmental delay and she has a new baby with a difficult disease.
She said to me “If any one of my 3 children comes to me and says that they cannot do something I will quickly remind them of their bead chain . They will carry their bead chains with them at all times, they will play with them and they will be a constant reminder that they have already done so much that there is nothing they can’t do” They will fight their own fights!
She calls their WOW beads – FACE OF THEIR VICTORY.
Treasure Life was blessed to have met such a wonderful family and we are grateful to have had a positive effect on their lives.
We wish them the very best!
