Maria (3) suffers from leukemia - her family needs money for hospital trips and treatment

Created: 12/25/2022, 5:38 p.m

By: Dominik Stallein

The readers help help campaign has been supporting people in need for many years.

This year also a family whose daughter suffers from leukemia © tk archive

READERS HELP HELP Little Maria (3) from Wolfratshausen has blood cancer.

Our fundraiser supports the family.

Wolfratshausen - When Maria plays farm on the carpet in the living room, says "Tiger" and grins and presents a lion figure, you could almost forget that the three-year-old was in the clinic an hour earlier.

Only her bald head indicates that Maria is ill.

Seriously ill.

A few months ago, the girl was diagnosed with leukemia.

Since then, the otherwise cheerful woman from Wolfratshausen has spent more time in the children's clinic than on her farm in the living room.

Maria (3) suffers from leukemia - her family needs money for hospital trips and treatment

In late summer, Maria's mother Nikola Steier (all names have been changed by the editors) took her to the doctor.

She had noticed small, red dots under the girl's eye.

Steier was uneasy about the inconspicuous spots.

Maybe it was maternal instinct.

The dots were the first harbingers of the terrible news.

Maria is battling an illness that, at three years old, she cannot understand.

Wolfratshausen: Cortisone and chemotherapy - three-year-old suffers from leukemia

The treatment started quickly, Maria received cortisone at the beginning.

The drug changed the girl.

"She was no longer the little one I know," says her father Sebastian Steier.

She was moody, not even enthusiastic about her farm figures.

Maria suffered noticeably.

She doesn't need the cortisone at the moment.

Chemotherapy is now underway, which she tolerates better.

When she visits our newspaper, Maria seems almost cheerful.

She's having a pretty good day.

On such occasions, she rages through the living room, holds a stuffed pig in her hand, sticks her tongue out at guests and laughs when they do the same.

On bad days, she doesn't leave the couch, stares at a screen, is sluggish and grumpy.

The emergency kit that her parents have packed is used for particularly bad cases.

Inside are clothes for a few days.

You need the backpack frequently.

Many trips to the clinic: the situation of their sick daughter costs the families a lot of money

If Maria has a viral disease, she has to go to the clinic.

If Maria has a fever, she has to go to the clinic.

Maria often has fever.

It's a side effect of radiation therapy.

One the course of which must be monitored by the doctors.

"She comes home on Monday, and on Tuesday we sometimes have to drive her back to the clinic, where she stays for days," her father describes the situation.

She hasn't been home for almost a week lately.

Her mother then accompanies her and stays by her side.

Nikola Steier has not been able to work since the diagnosis.

Her daughter's state of health is too changeable and the family has to travel to Munich too often in addition to the regular treatment appointments.

Young girl from Wolfratshausen seriously ill - she often has to go to the children's hospital

The situation has burned a deep hole in the family coffers.

"We're just getting by," says Sebastian Steier.

This year he completed his technician training, the salary is enough to live on, but nothing is left of the earnings at the end of the month.

When the car battery recently gave out, the family man didn't know how to pay for the new one.

"Nothing should happen, more than what is necessary is simply not possible.".

He has since put a few hundred euros into parking meters around the clinic.

He spent even more money at gas stations, the many trips to the hospital and back eat up too much fuel.

The family pays its own share for some medicines.

also read

"Should be a wonderful day": Wolfratshauser fulfills the terminally ill's last wishes

READ

"The project is really important": Egling supports family sponsors

READ

Christmas mail from Geretsried's twin town Chamalières

READ

Christmas gifts for the needy: the wishing tree campaign makes heart's desires come true

READ

Nice gift for seniors in Eurasburg

READ

Fancy a voyage of discovery?

My space

Diagnosis of leukemia: Maria's chances of recovery are good - but the way there is long

The form of leukemia that Maria was diagnosed with is treatable and the chances of recovery are good.

The therapy was scheduled for a total of two years.

The most intensive phase of chemotherapy can still last for a few months.

When Nikola Steier can work again is completely uncertain.

Priority is Maria and her health.

The family would like to give their daughter and themselves other, light-hearted thoughts.

But long trips, visits to friends, or normal everyday life are currently unthinkable.

“We are either at home or in the clinic,” says Nikola Steier.

The risk is too great that one of the three will catch a virus or that Maria will be so exhausted by the well-intentioned distraction that mom and dad will have to pull out the emergency kit afterwards.

There would be no money for a family trip anyway.

Christmas Eve: Leukemia patients can spend the evening with their family - unless they get a fever

At least on Christmas Eve, the family finally wants to make themselves nice again.

Nikola Steier wants to bake.

Maria has no treatment appointments on this day.

If she doesn't get a fever again, she doesn't have to go back to the clinic until the turn of the year.

Then a new unit of chemotherapy begins.

If she tolerates the treatment well, she sits with her mother in the facility's playroom between therapy appointments.

There are also play figures - even tigers have them.

Donation account for "Readers help help"

Raiffeisenbank in Oberland

DE29 7016 9598 0000 1010 10

Sparkasse Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

DE34 7005 4306 0054 0054 00