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Coming together for Nina

We are saddened to hear about the passing of Nina Schidlowsky. People will still be gathering for a celebration of her life on April 24 at the Pioneer Hotel.
Nina
Since we last talked with her in January, Nina Schidlowsky was diagnosed with severe Graft Versus Host Disease, a complication from her bone marrow transplant in December. Despite her passing on April 19, Humboldt people are still having a fundraiser for her and her family, which includes dad and mom, Reg and Bea, and brother, Jordan on April 24. photo courtesy of Bea Schidlowsky

We are saddened to hear about the passing of Nina Schidlowsky.

People will still be gathering for a celebration of her life on April 24 at the Pioneer Hotel.

We had the delight of speaking to Nina on April 17 to discuss the fundraiser and how she was doing.

Everyone has bad days, especially when they are sick.

For Nina, the bad days seemed to out number the goods ones as she continued treatment for severe aplastic anemia (SAA).

There is no point in feeling sorry for herself, said the 21 year old, she got a lot more out of being positive.

“There are days where you have a little bit of a pity party but it’s exhausting to feel sorry for yourself.”

Sitting and thinking about all the negative in her life was not getting her anywhere, she says, so looking at all the positives was a much better solution.

“If you could do something good for others while you might not being doing too good yourself, it doesn’t harm you any to be a nice person,” she laughed.

A big positive for her was that people are coming together on April 24 in Humboldt to help her family, including mom and dad, Bea and Reg and brother, Jordan.

Treatment was expensive and Bea had taken over full time care of Nina, planning on taking off work until the end of May putting her work as a nurse on hold for six month.

“It’s not all about the money,” says Dave Atamanchuk, who is helping organize the fundraiser, “it’s about knowing that people are there and they care."

Atamanchuk is surprised at the response to the fundraiser. One gentleman who does not know the Schidlowsky family jumped to help out, says Atamanchuk.

When Atamanchuk asked why he was so eager, he said that we cannot always do big things but we can all help out in small ways.

Nina did not even know about the fundraiser until she saw it posted on Facebook, which completely blew her away.

“To have the support that I have and to have people coming out for me, people I don’t know, I think that’s just amazing.”

For Bea, it’s humbling to be supported by the Humboldt community especially since they know they would do the same for someone else.

Talking to people in Saskatoon, they are amazed that so much support could come from a community the size of Humboldt, says Bea.

“A community our size rallies and here in the city, you might not even know your neighbour.”

Coming from Humboldt and knowing that people care is a wonderful feeling, she says.

Nina spoke to the Humboldt Journal for our issue back on January 11 to talk about the bone marrow transplant she underwent on Dec. 22.

Unfortunately since then her body has rejected her bone marrow donor this lead to her being diagnosed with severe Graft Versus Host Disease two weeks after she was released from the hospital.

She had to undergo emergency surgery and treatments to counteract the affects, which has included intestinal problems and a month confined to a hospital bed.

Doctors took biopsies of her stomach and bowel to confirm that this is the case, says Bea.

By the time she was released at the middle of March, Nina had to relearn how to walk since she had lost a lot of weight, including fat and muscle.

Again, two weeks later Nina was back in the hospital with severe pain and had only been able to leave on day passed for her mental health, says Bea.

“Being in the hospital, you tend to stay in the bed,” Bea says.

With her need for strong pain medication every two hours, Nina was still unable to be released from the hospital.

“I don’t think I’d have much quality of life if I didn’t have something to get me through the day,” says Nina.