(Lucica Bunghez and Camelia Csiki in the airplane)

WE CAN'T SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT IN FRONT OF US

The following story is taken from movies/documents/reports to inspire Romanians and make them think. If you were in a similar situation, would you have had the strength, determination, ambition, will and greatness of soul to do what these people did?

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Erin Brockovich is a movie about a simple, untrained woman whose perseverance, ambition, and intelligence enabled her to win one of the most famous law cases in the legal history of America. Erin had not had an easy life; she was a single mom raising three children, but she took her work very seriously. She believed that she could help the residents of a town stop a company from polluting their drinking water, and so she devoted herself to the case and ultimately won against incredible odds.

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This is a story about the Romanian Erin Brockovich.

Camelia Csiki was a journalist from Brasov who enabled Dr. McMay McKinnon to come to Bucharest to save the life of Lucica Bunghez. You probably haven't heard of Camelia, because the headlines were more concerned with the sensational operation than the story that led up to it. But the real hero of the story was a woman who wasn't featured in the newspapers.

Two years ago, Camelia Csiki met Lucica Bunghez, a woman in Brasov suffering from severe neurofibromenthoz, a huge tumor that had incapacitated her for years. Camelia was concerned about Lucica's plight, and she wanted to help her find a cure. "If you let me write about you," the journalist said, "I promise I will try to help you." It took a while for Lucica to be convinced, but finally Camelia brought a photographer to Lucica's house for the interview. The journalist said later that after that meeting, neither Camelia nor the photographer could speak for hours. She had never seen anything like it, although she'd been a journalist for a long time.

"I've seen a lot in my life," Camelia said. "I've searched for human heads in bushes. I've seen sickness and death. But nothing has ever shocked me like this."

And that's how the Monitor Expres, a local newspaper in Brasov, began a campaign called "Help Lucica." Camelia spearheaded the fight against authorities, laws, and prejudices. She had no previous medical training; when she began the campaign, she had never even heard of neurofibromenthoz. But since then she has done so much research on it, preparing reports for medical committees and researching online, that she can hold her own in scientific conversations on the subject. "I could get a degree in neurofibromenthoz," she jokes. All because she wanted to honor a promise she made for a woman who is old enough to be her mother. And so on October 1, 2002, the "Help Lucica" campaign began.

Camelia had a busy schedule. She was working two jobs, one at the local newspaper and one at a central newspaper, so she literally worked from morning till night. But somehow in the midst of her schedule she found time to research Lucica's sickness and treatments that might be able to help. "I would go online at nine in the evening," she remembers, "and keep working until one on the morning. That was the only time I had."

At last her work paid off with the names of several clinics in England, Germany, and Austria. And then she was lucky enough to find a Romanian woman from Brasov who was living in London and wanted to help. Klementina Balint Egan found a clinic near Oxford and, after long discussion, the doctors there agreed that they could operate on the tumor. But the cost of the operation would be more than 12,000 pounds.

So Camelia began a new campaign, this time to raise funds for the operation. All 12,000 pounds were eventually donated by readers of the Brasovean newspaper and local businessmen. The newspaper editor gave $10,000, and the Brasov Local Council, in an unprecedented meeting organized by the journalist, approved a donation of 50,000,000 lei (1500$). Even the patients from the county hospital raised a donation of 68,000 lei. "That was probably the most emotional gift," remembers Camelia; "I was moved by their gesture."

Once the money was raised, Camelia began the painstaking process of obtaining a visa for Lucica to travel to Great Britain. She needed the approval of the Ministry of Sanitation for Lucica to be removed from the country for treatment. Just to get a piece of paper from the ministry allowing her to leave the country, Lucica had to be examined by three doctors and undergo two weeks of treatment - none of which was paid for by the ministry.

But at last the doctors wrote the letter for the visa, stating reluctantly that Lucica could attempt treatment in a foreign clinic. (Today, of course, the Romanian doctors claim the operation as their personal success!)

The visa, however, was not the final obstacle on the way to England. Because her tumor was so large, Lucica could not travel normally; she couldn't sit on the plane. Camelia began a series of negotiations with Tarom Airlines to sponsor the trip by removing ten seats from the plane to make room for a stretcher. This young journalist, perseverant and ambitious, made one presentation after another, negotiating with more and more people and at last convincing the airline to help.

And so at last Lucica arrived in England, but by then she was too weak for the treatment. The doctors were unwilling to risk the operation, and so they had to send her home.

"Now what do we do?" Camelia asked, after Lucica returned from England.

"I had a dream," Lucica answered the young woman who had become like family to her, "and in it God told me that if you keep looking, you will find a cure."

So Camelia kept searching, sending messages to anyone who might be able to help. At last she received an email from Dinu Gangure, a Romanian doctor living in New York. He told her about a similar case in America that was featured on the Discovery Channel. Camelia emailed the Discovery Channel, and for the first time she heard the name of Dr. McMay McKinnon.

Camelia wrote Dr. McKinnon in March and April of 2003, eventually sending him all the documentation on Lucica's treatment. McKinnon told her that the tumor was operable. "What's more," he told Camelia, "I'll do the operation for free. But the post-operative treatment costs $600,000."

"It's too much," Camelia answered, remembering how hard it was to raise 12,000 pounds. And so the doctor began to search for alternative solutions. He approached Chicago University, offering to let them study the case if they covered part of the expenses. They agreed to reduce the price by half. But the remaining $300,000 was still too much for Romania.

So Camelia sent a new report to the Minister of Sanitation, Bartos, asking him to help finance the cost. Bartos was resigning, and the new minister, Beuran, did not approve the $300,000 from the budget.

And then the doctor had a new idea. "Ask your patient what she would think if I came to Romania," he said to Camelia. "Then I would only need the equipment, which costs about $10,000, and a place to operate." So after still more reports, meetings, and negotiations, the Beuran ministry approved the purchase of the equipment and arranged for the operation to take place at Fundeni Hospital. In December 2003, McKinnon bought his plane ticket to Bucharest for January 18. "Don't tell Lucica when I'm coming," he warned Camelia; "I don't want her to get excited and become worse."

The rest of the story - the successful operation and Lucica's return to health - was made famous by newspapers and documentaries all over Romania. But one thing that wasn't publicized was the moment when Camelia and the doctor met for the first time. "We shook hands," remembers Camelia, "and he thanked me for everything I'd done for Lucica. But I said don't thank me. He was doing all the work."

This petite journalist, who fought with ministers, authorities, and airplane companies while raising thousands of dollars and convincing doctors to cross oceans, all for a woman to whom she made a promise, is the real hero of this story, although you never saw her in the papers. Hers is the story of a superhuman gesture made to honor an impossible promise. It's the story of three Romanians who had never met in person - one in America, one in England, and one in Brasov - who all helped one woman gain a new lease on life.

From the report by Cristina Bazavan - Europa FM