I run to pay for hours of life. Mykytenko Oleksandr

"Greetings! My name is Sasha, and I am 28 years old. I am participating in this run to help another person. This is my first time running a marathon, but I do like jogging. I also like hiking in the Carpathian mountains, traveling around Europe, and snowboarding. In general, an active lifestyle is the one I enjoy. And when I was offered an opportunity to participate in this charity run, I thought, why not help someone out while doing something I enjoy? And of course, I agreed. Because this is really cool when every step you take can prolong someone's life, to give someone a gift of another day, of another breath!".

Sasha is running with our team for the sake of giving the gift of hours and days of life to Oksana Smal', who lives in the city of L'viv. This young woman has been living with an incurable form of kidney cancer for the last three years. She has been able to survive because her doctors did not give up and were able to find a edication that has halted the progression of her cancer, and a large number of people have been helping her to pay for this medication all these months. Even a brief interruption in taking this medication results in immediate worsening of her condition. Which means that the cancer is not gone, only dormant, and not progressing only as long as Oksana is taking the magic pills. Which means, that if Oksana doesn't have these pills, she wouldn't be able to survive for long... It is a direct relationship. It is stunning. It might seem impossible to tolerate such a situation--how can one accept that every tomorrow depends on whether one is able to pay the drugstore's bill? This medication is very expensive, more than 26,000 UAH a month! But thank God that this medicine exists, even though it is very expensive. That means that survival is at least possible.

How can we let someone die before their time only because their family can't afford the life-giving medicines? And Oksana's family consists of her very young daughter and her elderly father. The three of them certainly don't have enough money to afford this medication. Our foundation's entire team is participating in this run for the sake of saving Oksana's life. For another month, another day, another hour.