Mira is a lively child of 10 years and at first glance she is like all her peers. What sets her apart is that for eight of her conscious years she has walked hand in hand with her companion, Autism.

He came into our lives out of the blue and uninvited, and has remained a pretty faithful companion in spite of it. We too are learning to accept it, but at the same time we are tirelessly fighting it. It all started in not too distant 2016 , when Mira was almost 2 years old. Her father and I could see that she was growing up different from her sister, not exploring the world the way her sister did, avoiding touching objects and barely using her hands. She didn't want to walk, even though she actually walked without help at 1 year and 4 months, but mainly she wanted to ride in her baby carriage or be carried in our arms. Sleep was disrupted, as there were nights where she woke up at 1am and I had to stay with her in my arms until morning or she would drown the house from crying. When we called her name, she didn't respond to us or turn around. She would vocalize without saying a word, and we never heard the cherished "Mommy" and "Daddy," although we have heard it many times in our dreams and have not lost faith and hope that it is not too late to hear it! She wasn't playing with her usual toys, avoiding the children, not paying attention to her sister. All of this led us to leave our seemingly peaceful life in Veliko Tarnovo and head to Sofia for further research. The first thing we did was to book an appointment for an Audiometric Hearing Test at ISUL, because initially we thought the child had a hearing problem. It turned out that the child was hearing just fine, so we were referred for further consultations with a child psychiatrist, neurologist and psychologist. We subsequently did the consultation with the child psychiatrist, who at the very first appointment said that the child appeared to have a generalized developmental disorder which was unspecified, gave us that initial diagnosis and asked to see us again in 6 months, until then she recommended that a speech therapist and psychologist work with the child. We started looking for children's centres in Sofia where we could work with her in a targeted way, it turned out that there were no places in the state ones and we had to look for an option for her to visit the specialists privately.

In the meantime, since we could not find a place in a state-run nursery and kindergarten due to the specifics of her condition, we had to have her attend a private one. Over the years, we started doing occupational therapy to improve the sensory because it turned out that there was a serious problem there and because of that the child did not explore the world through touching objects and playing. An occupational therapist, a speech therapist and a psychologist work with her regularly to this day. Mira's main problem is poor and incorrect auditory processing, which is due to disrupted connections in the brain and is characteristic of all children on the Autism spectrum. We started reading and becoming more interested in the cause of the condition - this is how we learned about the biochemical approach to treating Autism and bravely went for it. So far we have consulted all possible holistic specialists working in this field in Bulgaria, during these years we have run quite expensive tests, which in summary are metabolic, genetic and immunological and based on the test results it turned out that the child has a number of disorders in metabolic pathways, which requires him to be continuously supplemented daily with expensive supplements - trace elements, vitamins and enzymes. Against this background, continuous daily therapies have been going on over the years to enable the child to improve his mental development. In addition to a speech therapist, psychologist and occupational therapist, we also included an oral-motor therapist as well as a sensory-motor one . Several times a week there is work with a special educator and a resource teacher. As the child is non-verbal and with more limited comprehension, due to her inability to understand speech in general we were never able to find a place for her in a public school as unfortunately despite the inclusive education that exists on paper in our country, our child was unwanted .

Due to this fact we are forced to pay a hefty fee every month for her to be in a private school in addition to the cost of therapies, nutritionalist consultations and supplements which are important for her development. One of our big goals is for the child to find a way to communicate with us and with the world around her. Therefore, over the years, in addition to all of the above, we have tried a number of means of doing this - ABA therapy, Picture Emotion Communication (PECS), a special communication device - Communicator 5. I guess you can guess that I have to be around the child all the time to accompany her and be able to care for her. This necessitated that I quit my job and the financial care of everything for our daughter and our other child fell to Dad, who remained the only working person in the family. On a monthly basis, Mira's expenses alone are over 3000 leva, and that is just the cost of therapies and the fee for the private school, which fortunately is for children with special needs like her and where we are completely comfortable that she is well and accepted. Despite our years of continuous efforts to improve Mira's condition so that she can be more independent and able to manage without our help in the future, we are still far from that goal! We have therefore resorted to stem cell infusion counselling as our interest in this area is also long standing. In the summer of this year, when we learned that Professor Erdal Karayoz from the Liv Hospitall Clinic in Istanbul would be coming to Varna, we immediately booked a consultation. We met with the professor and he gave us a lot of hope that our daughter's condition can improve in the direction of increasing understanding, decreasing hyperactivity (which in our case is one idea better than the beginning in view of the continuous therapies), at the same time giving us hope for the appearance of learning interests, which have been almost missing so far. They also give chances for the much cherished talking, which although late in her life , once unlocked could increase Mira's chances of communicating fully and finding friends and soul mates, something she has been lacking. Due to the high value of the offer sent, we continued our search and decided on the medical center (clinic) Phoenix in Plovdiv, where together with professor Chavdar Botev also do stem cell infusions. The offer we got from them was for 21 731 leva for two courses of 4 infusions per week each, which also included a required preliminary set of tests.

The biggest fear of our family, and I suppose of any family who has a child with a disability, is "what will happen to the child when we are gone from this world?"! In our case Mira has a sister a year and three months older than her, but in this case the question is "is it right and necessary to condemn her sister to a life where she will have to serve her and sacrifice her future for the sake of being by her sister's side! And Professor Karayoz from Liv Hospitall in Istanbul and Prof. Botev from Phoenix explained to us that the infusions are needed to "open the portal", which is currently closed in the child and that is why the therapies are not having the expected effect. The amount of money needed for the infusions is unaffordable for our family and because of this fact we need the support of all of you so that Mira can have a chance for a dignified and independent existence in our society, as an equal member who will contribute to the common good through her skills, and not be placed in the corridor of persons with disabilities who most of society unfortunately considers to be a burden! We would be grateful for every outstretched hand because every child needs a chance to grow up with dignity and become an independent person!