The girl who refused to stop living

Two generations of sculptors. One diagnosis that arrived in a single night. And a family who decided that freedom was worth fighting for.

Support Panka

Two sculpors, one life

Twenty-five years ago, two young sculptors met. For three years they only spoke on the phone — until she brought her work to his workshop, and he knew he wanted to spend his life beside her. That was twenty-one years ago.

Since then: a marriage, two children, hundreds of bronzes across five continents, and a shared studio where art and family are the same thing. Our children grew up among clay and wax and molten metal. We never pushed them toward art — we simply watched them bloom, like two small buds.

„We never wanted to raise them into art. We only hoped they’d choose it themselves.”

Panka's parents

The night everything changed

In the summer of 2024, Panka came home from camp. By nightfall, an ambulance was carrying her to the capital. The words we heard there divided her life into a before and an after: type 1 diabetes.

For half a year it meant six finger-pricks a day and insulin injections — at nine in the evening, at eleven, at three in the morning, at seven. Her skin was full of tiny stings. She grieved quietly for the free life she loved most: horses, diving, climbing rock faces. A thirteen-year-old, mourning her own freedom.

A choice for freedom

We couldn’t accept a childhood measured out in needles and broken sleep. So we brought in a modern American sensor-and-pump system — not because it was easy or cheap, but because it gives her back the one thing that matters most: her freedom.

Now her parents can follow her glucose on their phones, day and night, and adjust her insulin remotely if she needs it — even from the other side of the country. She no longer has to wake herself three times a night. She can simply be a teenager again.

From a single night to a full life

From diagnosis to determination, each moment shaped who she became. Her family stood beside her, sculpting a path forward.

2011

Panka is born

A second little bud in a family of makers.
4 July 2024

The siren

An ambulance carries her to the capital. From that day, everything is different: type 1 diabetes.
December 2024

A choice for freedom

The family orders the pump and sensor system from the US. A family whose son uses the same system helps set up the controller app. Now her parents watch — and can adjust — her levels 24 hours a day.
2025

Back to the studio

Panka begins her studies in sculpture, finishing her first year with top marks.
2026

Fully alive

Fifteen years old. She swims, climbs rock faces with the patch pump on, and asked for a paddleboard for her birthday.

355 kilometres, for a dream

After the diagnosis, we rethought everything. The children told us themselves that they wanted to go to art school. So we moved 355 kilometres, to the city where their mother once studied.

Every Friday, before the move, their father drove them there and back to prepare for the entrance exams — 355 kilometres each way, just to let them draw. Then we sold our old house, and exactly one year ago, on the first day of school, they slept for the first time in the new home: two studios, a foundry, a room for carving stone. Today they are happy — full of friends, of work, of first love.

What your gift covers

Panka’s system isn’t a one-time purchase — it’s an ongoing monthly need. Here is exactly where every gift goes.

Before the pump, I’d sleep at nine, wake at eleven for a prick and a needle, again at three, again at seven. My skin was full of little stings. I hated it. The pump is a blessing — I feel safe.

Panka

15, sculpture student

Even while my daughter is in class, I can follow her blood sugar at any moment — whether it’s low or high. Among all the worry, that matters to me more than anything.

Anna, Panka's mother

Sculptor

I can be driving across the country, and at the bottom of my phone — next to the navigation — I see her glucose chart. If she needs it, I can correct her insulin from there.

Panka's father

Sculptor

Where Art Meets Love

Panka grew up in the studio, and over the years a quiet collection has gathered — drawings, paintings, small sculptures. Beside her, two generations of bronze.