Saying Goodbye to Life and Not Dying: Stories of Cancer Survivors
On the first Sunday of June, people all over the world celebrate Cancer Survivors DayIt was first celebrated in 1987 in the United States, and the positive holiday has gained popularity in other countries. It is also celebrated in Russia, where cancer cases are diagnosed annually. reveal approximately at 600 thousand patientsAlthough the word "cancer" itself still continues to instill horror, 50% of cancer patients are cured from illness.
"When I looked at the photo, I realized something was already taking hold of me from within," "I thought about my funeral dress: I didn't have one because I like trousers," "Seeing young people get sick and die, I realized I wasn't so scared: my children aren't little, and I've lived a good life. There was no despair. Maybe because I'm a religious person," This is how NeMoskva readers described their reaction to the diagnosis given by oncologists.
Some said goodbye to life and meekly awaited the end, while others immediately decided to fight. Both survived, are in stable remission, and told NeMoskva their stories.
"I was riding on the bus, looking at people and thinking, 'They'll live, but I don't know.'"
Early February 1996 Valentine She was taking a shower and discovered a lump in her breast—no bigger than a cherry pit. She wanted to ignore it, but women she knew kept telling her they'd found something in their breasts. So they went to the doctor. 45-year-old Valya did too. The surgeon sent her to an oncologist, who told her to undress, pulled out a syringe, and took an extract from the cherry pit. "Your tumor isn't benign," he immediately said. That's how the young woman learned she had cancer.
Valya's daughter says her mother came home, lay down, and cried for several days with her grandmother. A little later, after they managed to get through to the doctors at the department, she was admitted for treatment.
"I was lucky, the 'bone' grew almost under my skin, not inside my breast. If it had been any deeper, I wouldn't have found it and would have died. There were a lot of stories like that: women didn't check themselves, and I didn't check myself. I just accidentally touched it." — Valentina recalls. — It was stage one cancer. I was incredibly lucky. At the same time, my neighbor, a very attractive woman, was sick. She refused to have her breasts removed. She was afraid men would stop looking. They stopped, and she died.
At the end of February, Valentina was scheduled for surgery. They decided to perform a breast reduction, section by section. But when Valentina woke up from anesthesia, one breast was missing.
"The doctor decided to remove everything. My neighbor had a sectional breast removal—she suffered for a long time, nothing healed, it was festering. I had nothing to fester. But that didn't bother me at the time. I desperately wanted to live: my daughter was a first-year student, my mother was a pensioner. I remember riding the bus, looking at people and thinking: you will live, but I don't know. Maybe these are my last days.
Radiation therapy was given in a course: one before surgery and five more after.
Valentina was monitored at the oncology center for five years. Her roommates were granted disability benefits, but Valya didn't. She only went to a special store—an orthopedic one—where they had special bras with pads among the prosthetics. They were for those who didn't have breasts.
"I was registered for five years and then left. I didn't see any doctors, and I didn't get annual checkups. Every time I changed clinics, I kept explaining to the therapists what kind of surgery I'd had. The only thing I did as recommended was to get the lymph flowing in my arm; the operation had disrupted lymph flow. And I ate white cabbage—the doctor said it was my best friend."
After the surgery, after being unemployed for several months, Valentina found a job in the health department. The new young woman caused a stir among the male population. She was invited to dance at every celebration.
— It's Medical Worker's Day. I'm wearing a beautiful gray suit. Men ask me out, I accept, but I'm dancing at a huge distance. God forbid anyone gets too close—my breasts are hard, and there were no breast pads back then. We all sprinkled cereal on them to create volume. And then we got all the special equipment: I even had a swimsuit with a pad. But it was still awkward: I had to hide the scar, make sure nothing was visible. Sometimes my daughter or friends would give me signs that the missing breast was showing.
In the spring of 2023, Valentina received a sudden call from the clinic, inviting her to see an oncologist for an examination. It was her first time in 27 years.
Valentina is going to go.
"Things were really bad for me."
A subscriber of "NeMoskva" Svetlana sent her story. We are publishing it in full.
"I've had lymphoma. Generalized, non-Hodgkin's, since 2014. I was 50 then. Seeing young people get sick and die, I realized I wasn't so scared: my children aren't little, and I've lived a good life. There was no despair. Maybe because I'm a religious person.
Lymphoma responds well to chemotherapy these days. I was diagnosed with stage 4 and underwent over 30 cycles. For three years, I received chemotherapy every month. I live in a small town in Primorsky Krai. A regular doctor prescribed the main drug, Retuximab, every month, not every three months, as the regional doctors had advised. I'm grateful to the oncologist at the clinic for prescribing the right treatment.
I'd never been sick before. My body was quite healthy. My medical records only included a medical examination. I wasn't feeling well, had lost a lot of weight, but I worked until my vacation. While on vacation, I went to the clinic, but they didn't immediately diagnose the disease. Lymphoma is difficult to diagnose. I tolerated the chemotherapy well. I've been in remission since 2019 and received a Group I disability. They gave it to me when things seemed really bad... How upset I was then!
I'm currently working. I'll be working in my field starting in 2022. I passed my medical exam and was cleared to work. I'll always be grateful to our city doctors. They treated me for free; no one extorted any money.
In any situation, you should never despair or dwell on the negative. You should try to rely on the good that everyone can find. And you should help those who are having a harder time—my parents taught me that. I try to remember that. Health to everyone and all the best!
"Stuck between 'life is over' and 'life goes on'"
Mark I read it in "NeMoskva" note "Don't rush to bury yourself," he said, and immediately recalled the events of six years ago. How he said goodbye to life, how quickly and suddenly everything was left behind. He told the story himself and asked for the real names of the doctors who diagnosed this rare disease and quickly cured him of the fatal illness to be published.
About 20 years ago, Mark was diagnosed with a nodule on his thyroid gland. He had periodic checkups, but the nodule didn't grow. In 2017, he had another ultrasound, and the doctor's eyes told him it wasn't a good sign. Mark was 47.
"When I looked at the scan, I realized something was already gripping me from within. Not long before, I'd spoken to my endocrinologist, Anna Nevolnikova, from Moscow's run-of-the-mill Polyclinic No. 220. She, surprisingly, referred me for a rare test that revealed an orphan disease—medullary thyroid cancer. It's difficult to diagnose and difficult to treat. Not even every oncologist understands what this disease is. We have very few specialists in it." — the interlocutor explained.
At first, it didn't "get it." After the biopsy, it became clear: it was cancer, and a rare, terrible cancer. He walked through Moscow and, in about 20 minutes, experienced all the stages of post-traumatic stress disorder, from denial to acceptance. He told a close friend, and she felt better. He firmly decided to get treatment. He told a second friend, and she burst into tears.
Mark was quickly allocated a place at the N.I. Pirogov High-Tech Medical Technologies Clinic at St. Petersburg State University. The surgery was performed in less than three weeks. Professor Ilya Sleptsov, specializing in medullary cancer.
I checked into the clinic on Friday, and on the weekend I went for a walk around my favorite places in St. Petersburg. I said goodbye to these places, goodbye to life. I got a haircut, stopped by my favorite bar, and wore a nearly white shirt for the surgery. The operation was on Monday, and I'm free on Tuesday. — Mark recalls. — Although the operation was serious, it lasted three and a half hours.
It seemed like everything was behind him, "but then the most important thing began." For two years, they couldn't find the right hormone replacement therapy for him, and he alternated between sleeping and waking for almost 5 hours straight. He "weeded out" many friends because he suddenly couldn't understand why he was hanging out with uninteresting people who had no thoughts of their own, only the television. He decided it wasn't worth wasting his time and energy on them. He also had a friend in St. Petersburg whom he asked to come over the evening after his surgery. Just to be there. The friend didn't show up. Only five years later did Mark manage to get the reason out of him: he didn't want to be upset, didn't want to see the hospital interiors, and didn't want to see his friend in his post-operative state. He preferred not to know anything about it.
Mark was prescribed therapy.
"But I stopped feeling like I belonged in life; I found myself neither here nor there, between entities. I didn't go 'there,' but I didn't return to life either, and that's strange. Even in the first few years, I was constantly afraid that the disease might return. Each examination is a separate test." — the interlocutor recalls.
Mark has been in remission for six years. He remembers the surgeon with gratitude and with surprise the situation the doctor described at the clinic. Literally right after him, another patient was diagnosed with this rare disease. He refused treatment, saying, "I don't have cancer! Now you're going to cut me open, and then I'll definitely die." Mark begged the doctor to persuade the other patient to call him and discuss the surgery and remission. Nothing worked. Whether the man from the neighboring house is still alive is unknown.
Mark is now working. He's alive. Sometimes, he just has to adjust his medication dosage. Mark advises anyone in this situation to begin treatment without delay. And definitely not indulge in self-deception like, "I don't have cancer."
"I'm not in the cemetery after all."
A subscriber of "NeMoskva" Catherine She shared her story of treatment and meeting people who deny the existence of cancer or attribute fantastic causes to cancer.
«"Don't worry about it yet, but it's probably cancer.""—that's what I heard from my gynecologist at 39. Somehow I survived a trip to the oncology clinic, repeat tests, and the long lines where bald women with headscarves and sunken eyes shared folk recipes for cancer potions. In the oncologist's office, I held my nerve until he asked a question. I whispered something in response and burst into tears. "It's not that bad"“— he tried to calm down, but nothing worked.
He issued a referral for hospitalization; I was scheduled to arrive in two weeks. During this time, I washed and ironed all the laundry twice, cooked for the whole company, wrote out instructions for my husband on how to cook potatoes and pasta, as well as detailed, valuable instructions on how to care for the dog and prepare its giblet porridge. I pondered my funeral dress: I didn't have one because I like trousers. I chose a photograph for my husband to attach to the gravestone. I was so engrossed in this that I was surprised when my husband shouted: "Are you a complete idiot or something?! You belong in a mental hospital, not an oncology clinic!"How can you yell at a terminally ill person?
Everything changed somehow in the hospital. I was undergoing radiation therapy (some of the procedures were very painful), and I found myself talking to my roommates and neighbors on the same floor, discovering a different world. Many women believed they had committed some sin and were being punished by God. Others didn't want to tell their families, even their husbands, about their diagnosis. "He'll leave me because I'm now spoiled."One kept saying that it was some kind of mistake, she couldn’t have “female cancer” because "I've only slept with my husband my whole life, and I haven't had affairs.".
Some attended the nearest church, while people from the villages were surprised why candles were so expensive in the regional center. "Oh, what can we do?" I asked curiously. "Tomorrow we'll get up early and go to the morning service."" , they replied. This world was amazing—distant, ancient, reeking of bonfires, drums, and vats of boiling resin. Despite all this, the ladies (and gentlemen from the floor, of course) believed that red wine "eliminates excess radiation from the body"The "Expulsion" took place on Fridays and Saturdays in front of the large TV in the hall, while "Field of Miracles" and other educational programs were shown.
In this daze and the realization of the unreality of what was happening, I didn't notice how the day of discharge had arrived. What followed was neither funny nor easy: panic attacks, insomnia and drowsiness alternately, for some reason swelling, lethargy, blood pressure, headaches, weather sensitivity came and showed no sign of going away, and the brain-eating mantra: oh-I-should-have-kicked-out-the-radiation-on-time.
My positive oncologist, whom I've been seeing for checkups for eight years now, is my savior. When I complain about my "completely unstable body," he invariably replies: "Let's take everything in order, starting with the main thing: we're not in a cemetery, are we?".
Not to the cemetery. So I beg, I implore women of all ages: get checked by a gynecologist at least once a year. After 40, twice a year won't hurt. And even if "nothing hurts." I never had any pain either. And yes: nuns and women of easy virtue, athletes and gym-school truants, young and old, residents of "smelly" cities and remote villages with "intoxicatingly clean" air all end up in oncology clinics. There's no shame in ending up in oncology. The shame is in not getting there in time because of some dark prejudice.
The images were generated by a neural network.
