To reduce mother's pain

A young woman was alone except for her daughter, in a rented apartment. The money was always short, and, having discussed this with her daughter, she decided to go abroad to work. She had many dreams: to help her daughter get started in life, to earn enough to buy herself an apartment... "But anybody who had gone to work abroad knows how difficult it is to earn the money, how faraway and practically impossible these dreams are...

I spent four years working in Italy, and thanks to my earnings, we were able to pay my daughter's living expenses and college tuition, but how much homesickness and tears these four years contained, only the two of us know. And so, after a long time away, I came home to see my family and to undergo medical testing while I was there, because due to my hard work all this time, I wasn't feeling very well. After the first diagnostic studies were done, including lab work, ultrasound, and CT, I was given a verdict: renal cancer, stage IV.

Everything was done: surgery, radiation, immunotherapy...but the cancer progressed. The standard maintenance therapy was not effective, the metastases kept spreading and growing. Oksana decided not to tell her elderly parents anything, so as not to make them worry. But her mother's heart felt the daughter's pain...and a month after Oksana's surgery, her mother suffered a stroke and died. "In one month, I lost my closest family member and I also lost my faith in the future and my joie de vivre. Now, I look at my daughter and realize that I have let her down. I will have to pass away and leave her behind, without help or support...she is only 22 years old. And I will also have to leave behind my 80-year-old dad."
A last attempt at treatment--a new drug. The first few months of taking it, extreme nervous tension, another follow-up test and...the progression of the cancer has stopped! The tumors are not getting bigger; in fact, they've gotten a little bit smaller. Is it a miracle? This drug does not promise a cure, but "muzzles" the disease, giving Oksana some time. Some more time to live, some more time for the daughter to spend with her mother.

"I will write from my viewpoint, her daughter's viewpoint. My mother is truly amazing, smart, cool, loyal, sincere, and yes, she is my closest family member, and not only because she is my mother. But also because she is my best adviser and my closest friend. My mom is cheerful and outgoing, and can always find common ground with anyone - whether it is an 86-year-old woman or a 15-year-old boy - everyone always loves her. My mom knows how to take care of other people and never forgets anybody with whom she's had any connection."

16, 089 UAH a month. Every month, 16 089 UAH are literally the price of Oksana's life. To pay or to die? Money or life? You are the ones who decide the fate of Oksana and her daughter today.

Name: Oksana V. Smal, born 24.12.1966

Location: Lviv

Diagnosis: light cellular carcinoma of the right kidney lesion with secondary bone skeleton and lungs