Emilia and Adrian Wejman met in the Poznań branch of Pekabex. Today, together with their sons, Franek and Filip, they create a wonderful family, which only lacks the certainty that three-year-old Filip will have a healthy heart. To achieve this, an urgent operation is needed, for which the boy’s parents are raising funds.
When and how did you meet?
Emilia: Here, in Pekabex, it was 2014. I worked in quality control, in the production hall, and Adrian in the design office.
Adrian: I was responsible for the Swedish investment at the time.
Emilia: As everyone knows, Adrian is a workaholic, we worked in two shifts at the time and he was always willing to help, you could call him with any problem. And so – from word to word, from one precast wall to another, from problem to problem, it all began. Adrian was still jogging then and he encouraged me to do the same, so we ran together to the Citadel Park.
And before you met in Pekabex, where did you study?
Emilia: I studied at the Białystok University of Technology, because I come from Podlasie, but I was already finishing my master’s degree in Poznań, while working here at the same time.
Adrian: I come from Konin, I studied at the Poznań University of Technology, I have been working at Pekabex since 2012, and I am celebrating my 10th anniversary in a month.
You mentioned that you worked together on Swedish projects/ investmensts.
Adrian: It was, among others, project Gudingen, which was probably the first project we implemented in Sweden. I remember that we had the documentation entrusted to us and we had to explain what it actually means.
Emilia: We had to work together, because without it it would be difficult to decipher the guidelines. It was Sweden that brought us closer together.
Adrian: We haven’t had a chance to go there together yet, I was in Sweden for work. To be honest, most of the projects I see, actually make me happy, but the visit to the hospital in Gothenburg made the biggest impression on me. Together with my colleague from the design department, Tomek, we were responsible for the design of this hospital. The project was difficult because I had to go there when our older son Franek was six months old. There were a lot of difficult situations to solve during this project, but I will never forget the moment when I saw the building already put into use, because the little patients were waving at us from the windows, it was hard to pass by indifferently.
Tell us something more about your sons.
Emilia: Franek is older, he will soon turn six. We know that every parent claims that their child is smart and intelligent, but he is just smart.
Adrian: We have to be very careful what we say, because Franek asks more and more difficult questions. At this point, when we started the collection of money for operation of his brother, we talk about it only after he goes to sleep. Adults often find it difficult to understand such situations, let alone a toddler.
Emilia: Our younger son Filip will be four years old in September. The first due date was Adrian’s birthday, and we had a little laugh about it, wondering if he’d have two kids before he turned thirty. As it turned out later, Filip was born four days later. The boys have completely different personalities. Franek is calmer, arranged, warm, and Filip is a hurricane – he is everywhere. He has been dealing with hospitals from the very beginning, so he has already learned to deal with it, but he is also more stubborn and if he does not like something, he is not afraid to stomp his feet.
Adrian: And in the hospital, he only likes ladies who don’t have a needle. If you don’t have a needle, you can go in. “Will there be a vaccine?” this is the first question he asks everyone who enters.
Why does Filip’s surgery have to be performed within a year?
Adrian: The situation of the heart at the moment is such that the defect has started to progress quite strongly. According to the cardiologist, we have about a year to perform the operation in relatively safe conditions. If our son’s health continues to deteriorate at this rate, the risk of failure increases.
Emilia: The trouble, however, is what Filip has already been through. He’s after two treatments and one operation. The first operation was complex and technically difficult. It was quite a rare operation and hardly anyone can perform it. The question arose who would perform that operation on a one-year-old child. The doctors postponed that surgery because they wanted the heart to be bigger and the child stronger, but the moment came when time began to work against us and we had to act. We learned that Filip will be taken care of by a cardiac surgeon who will fly from Geneva. It was before the pandemic, in November 2019. Filip was 14 months old then.
Adrian: The heart surgeon from Geneva who operated on our son at that time is of Georgian origin. The hospital tried to collect the most difficult cases so that they could be operated on at the same time. Filip was in a group of five children who were operated on then. It was an amazing mobilization of the hospital, the entire surgical ward and the ICU were reserved only for these children, no other operations were performed. This is a huge challenge for the staff and the hospital. It turned out that it was the last visit of this cardiac surgeon in Poland.
Why can’t this next operation be performed in Poland?
Emilia: Polish doctors would undertake it, but only as a last resort, when the situation is on the brink. The previous operation had many complications, the procedure went well technically, but already when leaving the operating block there was a problem with stabilizing vital functions, Filip had to be connected to the heart-lung machine again. We were then told that it was a critical condition and we had to prepare for the worst. Filip was in the ICU for another two weeks later, and he’s just now immediately seen as a high-risk patient. Each successive operation is more difficult than the first, and he has already had two surgeries and one operation. This is another one that isn’t the easiest either, because there aren’t any valves that small for children, so he has to get the smallest of the adult ones. And we also don’t know how the body will react to it, which is why doctors postpone it. After consulting cardiologists, we know that now Filip’s condition will deteriorate. And since he, being in good shape, reacted hard, we are afraid to wait until the last moment. We also consulted the matter with that surgeon, because there is a rule that whoever started an operation should finish it best. Knowing this, we consulted it with a Geneva specialist. He saw this heart, his judgment was very important to us. He is one, if not the only doctor who sincerely believes in the success of this operation.
Adrian: He said that he would undertake the operation, but he made it clear that this operation must be done urgently, within a few months, because now Filip’s health will deteriorate faster than before. All Polish doctors we consulted want to wait until the last minute. And the last moment means that he will have trouble eating, walking and will be very blue. And we don’t want to do that to him or to ourselves. Because even at this moment, when he has so much strength, this operation is very risky. Filip is being rehabilitated all the time and since the ladies working with him found out about the operation, there has been a large intensification of exercises. So that the regression associated with hospital stay is as small as possible. Even adults can stop walking after such an operation. That’s why Filip needs to be rehabilitated all the time.
What is your son’s dream?
Emilia: He’s almost four-year-old, so his dreams change very quickly. He dreams of cookies for breakfast, strawberries in the winter, but he has been passionate about cars for a long time. T-shirts are with cars, hats are with cars, cartoons have to be about cars too. Our entire library is filled with books about cars. He has simple, childish dreams. He can count the cars in the parking lot and recognize them by their stamps. Recently, he stated that in the future he will become a commander and will have a lot of police cars.
How can we help?
Adrian: The main path for us is the siepomaga.pl portal, the fundraiser was set up there by our parent foundation, which has been helping us from the beginning. The neighbor from the desk, Marcin, is the person who encouraged us to do so, and it was thanks to him that we decided to let our son join the foundation’s charges. At first, we thought we could manage on our own, but now we see that this help is invaluable. The funding that is being determined from Geneva at the moment is the valuation of the operation. There are questions whether we can donate directly, so that there is no commission for siepomaga.pl – we don’t want it, because it is illegal and difficult for us. Thanks to the Children’s Heart Foundation, we can conduct rehabilitation without worrying about medical equipment or the purchase of necessary medicines. The Foundation is the organizer of the collection because it is ready to take care of all the formalities related to transfers and everything related to it.
Emilia: If someone does not want to support us through siepomaga.pl, then on the website of the Dina Radziwiłł’s Children’s Heart Foundation, one can donate directly to Filip’s sub-account. However, the main part of the collection is directed to siepomaga.pl. When about 90% of the collection goal is reached, the Geneva Hospital will set the date of the operation, which is why it is so important that this money appears there. We have also set up an auction group on Facebook, where people post items, handicrafts and services. You can submit such an item for auction to us or put it up yourself. This is a nice option, because for such groups, these things fetch higher amounts than if they were simply put up for sale. In fact, we are only just figuring out what we can do to ensure that everything is properly organized legally. It is very important for us to share the fundraiser in the media, we will definitely work with leaflets or posters. We receive a lot of ideas and help, for all of which we are very grateful.
- Link to the main collection: https://www.siepomaga.pl/filip-wejman
- Link to fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/Filip-Wejman-102240262515796
- Link to the auction group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/licytacjedlafilipa
- Link to Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bede_komendantem/