‘I just can’t abandon my baby’

THE PARENTS of two-year-old Joseph Pesiara, who was left brain-dead after a horrific fire two months ago, are refusing to lose hope that he will someday wake up, despite doctors’ claims he has a one in a billion chance of coming round.

The fact that his body has recently started fighting infections, along with the various movements he keeps making, has given Marina and Achilleas the right to hope for a miracle.

“When I see my son fighting, I will fight as well,” Marina told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “I just can’t abandon my baby.”

The reason the distraught parents refuse to give up hope is a diagnosis that Marina’s brother received back in 1999, when he became sick from leukaemia.

“It was very severe and doctors gave him just two months to live, suggesting he didn’t even undergo treatment,” she explained. “But he insisted and after receiving treatment he made a full recovery and is still with us today. So we are waiting for this to happen now too. The doctors want us to switch the machines off, but we are insisting.”

Joseph is currently being kept alive by machines and medication, but this isn’t deterring the family.

“We will continue to hope,” said Marina.

An email appeal sent by a group of people concerned about Joseph and his family, who lost their home in the fire, has provoked an overwhelming public response.

And it wasn’t just the Pesiara family that was helped; so much was donated that a large number of vulnerable families have also benefited from the campaign.