08/24/2026
Norbert is 16 years old. He is deaf. He sits down at the table, takes a sheet of paper and turns it into flowers. Then he sells them. He is not saving for a phone, a holiday or any of his own dreams. He is raising money for his dog’s treatment.
https://chuffed.org/project/paper-flowers-for-a-dogs-life-help-deaf-norbert-save-ashki
Flower by flower, he is trying to raise 35,000 PLN, because that is what a chance to save Ashki may cost.
And perhaps this is exactly where this story needs to begin.
Ashki is 9 years old and has everything we would wish for every animal. A home, a family and people for whom he is not simply an addition to life, but part of it. He shares an especially strong bond with Norbert. For the deaf boy, Ashki has been a friend, a confidant and a therapist for years. A companion you do not need words with in order to understand each other perfectly. A dog who is simply there. Beside him. Every single day.
Until recently, nothing suggested that this ordinary, good life could suddenly be hanging by a thread. Ashki was healthy and full of life. When swelling appeared on his face, nobody immediately thought of the worst. A visit to the vet, antibiotics, dental problems. It was supposed to be something manageable. Some teeth were removed. It did not help. More were removed. The swelling was still there.
The family began searching for answers. A CT scan brought the answer they had feared most. Cancer. The initial suspicion was osteosarcoma. Then came the biopsy and the first piece of good news in many weeks, although it is difficult to use the word good in a situation like this. The cancer was confirmed, but the diagnosis was different. Squamous cell carcinoma. Ashki was given something he had almost lost only moments before.
A chance for treatment.
His family seized that chance immediately. Ashki came under the care of an oncologist. More appointments followed, more tests, medication and regular trips to a veterinary clinic in Wrocław, twice a week, 100 kilometres each way. So far, his family has already spent more than 8,000 PLN. The medication he now needs continuously costs around 2,000 PLN every month.
The savings are gone. The disease is not. Ashki still has the actual cancer treatment ahead of him. The therapy that gives him a chance may cost around 35,000 PLN. The alternative is palliative treatment, which would cost around 18,000 PLN. It will not stop the disease. It can only buy Ashki time without pain and suffering.
For his family, both amounts are now beyond reach. Not because they do not want to fight. They have been fighting from the very first day. But in this home, Ashki is not the only one who needs money for medical care. Norbert requires rehabilitation, and that costs money too. And suddenly his parents have found themselves in a place no parents should ever have to be. On one side, the treatment and rehabilitation of their child. On the other, the life of an animal who has been connected to that child for years and who has himself become part of Norbert’s therapy, his sense of security and his world.
You cannot honestly place those two things on opposite sides of a scale. You cannot calculate the value of another month of Norbert’s rehabilitation and compare it with the value of another summer with Ashki beside him. You cannot tell parents to choose. And yet when bills are lying on the table, the dates of the next appointments are approaching and the savings are gone, that choice starts becoming very real.
That is why the family turned to the Centaurus Foundation for help. And we decided that we would try to carry this burden together with them.
We do not know how much time Ashki may be given. We do not know how his body will respond to treatment. With cancer, no responsible person can give guarantees. But we do know that the doctors see a possibility for treatment. That Ashki has a chance. And that it would be terribly unfair if that chance were taken away from him simply because his family has already spent everything they had.
We need 35,000 PLN so they can begin the fight for his life. If we cannot raise the full amount, we need at least 18,000 PLN to provide palliative treatment and make sure he does not have to live with pain.
It is a lot. But Norbert does not ask whether it is too much. He simply sits down and makes another paper flower.
Maybe it is a little uneven. Maybe the next one will be prettier. Then another one. And another. He sells them and puts the money aside because in his world the equation is simple. Ashki is sick, so Ashki has to be saved.
There is something about that which is impossible to ignore. A boy of sixteen cannot perform a CT scan, administer chemotherapy or plan cancer treatment. He cannot simply find 35,000 PLN. He can make a flower out of paper.
So he does.
And then he makes another one.
Let us not leave him alone at that table.
Let Norbert keep making his flowers, but no longer with the feeling that the life of his best friend depends on how many paper petals he manages to sell.
Let us try to take care of the rest together.
For Ashki. And for the boy who folds paper flowers because this is how he fights for someone he loves.
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