Because of the International Melanoma Day, I would like to tell the world my story once again.

My story is about the strength of mind, about never giving up, about the exit from a seemingly hopeless situation. My story is about possibilities of our body and modern medicine and finally – about the right to live.

My story is for those who because of fate are at the beginning of my way. My story is to help people to use all their willpower and win. But for that you will need belief. It is silly to think that the ill ones can win the cancer themselves. The body itself cannot do it after it has failed and the cells have gotten crazy. However, a drug exists which can help the immune system to start working again and defeat the disease. It is a pity that only a few of people know about this. Nowadays, there is a lot of information, different methods to defeat the cancer and heal the patient. However, is that really so, in fact? What really works and helps?

After having faced the cancer and being on the verge of life and death everybody quickly starts looking for a salvation, try different methods, but there are only some of them who win… And I am one of those few people… I was lucky. And I want to help others a lot. I want to share my experience, as it was positive.

When everything started, I didn’t understand clearly what was happening and what I should do. It was so unexpected and so terrifying… I was really not ready for that. I was 40 years old at the time. It was a very difficult period and a totally black line in my life when all disasters and misfortunes fell on my head… I didn’t control the situation and for a long time I was under stress and in depression. It was very bad – I suddenly lost my dad and business, saved my mom by a miracle and all that was a disaster for me… But I was always healthy and in a good physical shape. However, when you are young, your health goes without saying – nobody thinks about it and nobody cares. The understanding comes only when you lose it…

Your health is the key thing that can be lost so easily and it is not always possible to recover or buy it. Along with depression, the immune system fails. That happened in my case. A traumatised birthmark unexpectedly developed into a melanoma. And still I didn’t pay any attention to it and didn’t understand what was happening – my disease reached stage 4…

The diagnosis was like a verdict – melanoma of the skin on my back with multiple lymph nodes and liver metastases… I had a surgery, palliative chemotherapy and was sent back home to die. Doctors gave me half a year at that time, maybe a year to exist like a vegetable. I couldn’t believe that… I won’t go into details, starting from the fact that they didn’t tell me my diagnosis, didn’t give me my tests, and didn’t prescribe any additional ones… Everybody understood the situation clearly :(. My poor mom was ready to give me not only her liver but all of her organs, she was ready to die for me, but she didn’t know how to help me…

My friends advised to arrange all my things, take care of my children and find guardians for them… There was no discussion about the treatment – well, you understand… Such a diagnosis and at such a stage – nobody treats it in the world.

But I didn’t want to believe it. For some reason, I decided myself – if the poison exists, there must be an antidote. There must be! The problem was to find it in time. As far as there was nobody to rely on, I was forced to take the responsibility by myself. But the melanoma wasn’t giving me any time. There was no time to make a mistake. Everything happened so quickly… While I was thinking, the chemotherapy started to act. By then I still trusted my doctors that they would do “everything they could”. But I didn’t know that the chemotherapy prescribed by them was a palliative one! That it didn’t treat at all! It is usually prescribed to patients at hospices at their very last stages just to improve their well-being for a little bit… :(((. Then some narcotic anaesthetics come and… The end…………

When I realised that the metastases have increased by 30%, in terms of quantity and size… And when I started to look for and study everything related to the melanoma, just to understand what had been happening to me and what should I do – it was already too late.

The chemotherapy, the poison started working. My tests got worse. I spent days and nights on the Internet, talking with world leading clinics looking for a doctor who would want to try that or another technique that might give a result, went for consultations. I was looking for a cure that could really help. I didn’t care what it would be. The goal was the result! I was ready for surgeries, complicated and traumatic manipulations, going abroad, taking part in clinical researches. However, I needed to be sure that a doctor has already had some successful cases and that the proposed cure could actually help. Even if I had one chance per million. Everybody refused to help me though. At that stage and with that diagnosis the treatment was out of question… It was possible just to improve the condition and extend the life for only a short time… I didn’t agree with that. Especially as the prices of those drugs were unbelievably high.

And then, as it is said in the Bible: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” My faith saved me. It was the first time when I really relied on God. Finally, confidence, peace of mind and pacification came to me! I remember that feeling even now!!! The Lord really had heard my prayers! Even not mine, but those of my daughter who was just 8 at the time. She was my only support and helped me a lot. And then, absolutely out of nowhere and there where I hadn’t looked for and hadn’t expected, I found what I needed. It was a period when I couldn’t find successful experience, a doctor who could advise me something. I already knew so much that I could defend a thesis :). And I understood many things almost the same as doctors. That is why when I got to know about virotherapy and Riga virus drug at the Latvian Virotherapy Centre – for me it was like “Eureka!” I found it! I literally swallowed each and every piece of information I could find at their official website and I clearly knew – this was exactly what I needed! That was the thing that would help me! My mom and daughter didn’t share my enthusiasm at all. It all looked unreal to be realised and they were not sure it could help.

Stereotypes are pretty strong. If the entire world says it is not treatable – it means it is not treatable… At home, I had heaps of drugs, I had already considered traditional and non-traditional medicine. I was ready to drink even poison and everything else. To tell the truth, by that time I already understood that the chemotherapy and radiotherapy wasn’t effective. Melanoma just didn’t respond to them and the disease just grew worse. Herbs also worsened the situation. Healers were afraid of me, too. Although, one very popular man told me that everything would be fine – he knew that, however, refused to work with me. All this really got me down. But Latvian doctors accepted me!!! It was all God. The situation developed so fast, everything clicked as an unbelievable and magic puzzle. I was told that I would be healed but they prescribed the maximum possible dose of the drug, developed a plan and waited for the reaction of my body.

And finally, I got the drug. It was at home, in my hands. I couldn’t get up from bed – I had no strength… And there was no nurse who would agree to inject me unknown drug with such a diagnosis… In a city with population of almost one million. For three days, I searched for somebody who could do a simple injection! I myself cannot do injections and I am not familiar with medicine in general. I couldn’t also trust the drug that is worth my life to a random stranger. That was when I cried for the second time after my diagnosis. At home, and there was nobody who could do the injection. The first time was when I got Riga virus. Because I was unbelievably happy.

Nevertheless, I solved that issue and started the therapy. Three days later and after the first three injections, Riga virus brought me back to life; I got up and just walked. That time I didn’t think about the disease and diagnosis anymore. I completely abstracted from the situation. I felt like it worked and I knew it would help me. I had looked for the cure and I had found it.

Doctors were very experienced in treating patients with this method. They, as it turned out, were the best specialists in the world! Although nobody to whom I told about it had no idea, they didn’t even listen and didn’t believe in that possibility – I didn’t care. The main thing was that I believed in my doctors, I believed that the drug could treat me and my body responded positively!

It was amazing, but the reaction did start immediately! Though, in fact, it is very difficult to start the immune system, help the body to recognise the affected cells and resist. Moreover, the previous wrong treatment sped up the progress. My inguinal lymph nodes were like big bones – as hard – and they literally stuck out. And my liver, with me weighting 50kg, wasn’t big, it was like a starry sky – all covered with metastases. There were more than 200 of them! It was hard to believe. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t even discuss it with anybody besides the doctors. They and my assistants stayed in touch all the time, they controlled the process, monitored my tests, amended the treatment plan. When we started to receive the first results – they couldn’t believe themselves! The impossible was possible! Because of them, because of virotherapy, because of all those who were the part of my destiny. I was sent an angel from above who saved me and gave me second life.

My condition improved, the number and size of metastases decreased. After half a year only a quarter of them had remained! Nobody believed in what was happening. At the time, I was sharing my story with the world. There were many sceptics among patients, their relatives, and doctors. People talked, if I really had the diagnosis and what my tests showed. But I didn’t care. I wanted to help other people because I remembered my path and the fact that I was saved by a miracle that jumped in front of me and helped to get on a departing train called “Life”. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

I saw how people around me were dying. Young, but health had left them… It happens as usual, out of nowhere, out of the blue. Yesterday – just a birthmark. Today – already a melanoma. Why and how? How violently the cancer progresses, how people don’t even realise what happens… How they try to find a solution and cannot find it. How patients suffer from painful and useless manipulations, and numerous surgeries. How relatives give away their last money, occasionally even their organs, and still lose their loved ones. How they “complete the treatment” from initial stages to the final one. I have read discussions, listened, and communicated. Every day I spent half a night on the Internet and mourned over the next sick person. I tried to have time to help somebody to save their life. But the most terrible thing is that people start thinking and analysing only after it is too late…

Riga virus is not a panacea and there is no “golden magic pill” that would make you young and healthy immediately. It is a difficult path, it is a fight of the patient, doctors and medicine. But it works! I didn’t even imagine that the treatment of such the disease could be so easy, comfortable and so accessible! It isn’t necessary to stay at hospitals, but it is possible just to stay at home and do your things. With this diagnosis it is possible to feel like a normal human being. A drug that is much more effective than the others, that has no analogues, no contraindications, no side-effect, that doesn’t harm the body and finds and kills only the affected cells, that doesn’t allow new metastases to develop. The drug, which, comparing to the others, is cheaper and can do much more. Why does nobody know about it? Why don’t people talk about it? Because the chemical and pharmacy industries are well-organised businesses that generate huge profits. And doctors are not interested. For them it is either an “alternative method” like a folk medicine or nanotechnologies of the future. Even if some things exist for over half a century and patients from over 50 countries undergo this therapy. Those ones are lucky who manage to diagnose the disease and start the treatment. Many of them, including me, have come back from the land of the dead. To tell the truth, the majority tries to forget it like a bad dream. Forget and never remember. Not to speak about it. What about the others? They need us. Good examples and positive stories are necessary. Information that melanoma can be treated even at stage 3 or 4 is necessary. It is possible to return to a normal regular life. This drug isn’t just another advertisement but the reality. Moreover, the earlier the treatment starts, the more chances to recover. Chemotherapy kills and, unfortunately, the more courses of chemotherapy a patient gets, the chances that the virotherapy can reanimate the immune system after that decrease. I have amazing doctors! They don’t give false hopes but don’t take it away from people as well. Everybody has a chance. A lot of it depends directly on the person.

It is easier to give up and rely on somebody else. Relatives or friends, who will find a doctor and opportunity. A doctor who promises to do “everything possible” and then just makes a helpless gesture. “This diagnosis, well, you understand, don’t you…?” It was hard to believe. I cannot look at this, cannot hear this. I receive a lot of letters from many patients, from 15 different countries, over and over again hundreds of times they discuss my story, consult with me, my story is very important for them. If it was possible for me, there is a chance also for them. And I am happy when they get good results! I wish health and faith to everyone!

About Khrystyna Jakovenko and her motivation to participate in “Climb for Cancer”

As such an opportunity occurred, I would like to show the world what a life of a patient with this diagnosis and in the process of active therapy could be. In order to make you finally understand that virotherapy is indeed an effective treatment method, rather than just a temporary cure! That there are no complications or side effects; that it is not a temporary placebo.

I would like to support other patients and, using personal example, to tell that cancer  — and melanoma in particular  — is not a verdict, but rather a diagnosis, which can and should be treated! However, it should be done timely and properly! Exactly treating and not killing your immune system by unnecessary chemotherapy and radiation, leaving it no chance! After all, melanoma is resistant to these methods; they just accelerate the progress of the disease and poison your organism.

Virotherapy helped me, bringing the life back. I would like to help other patients by spreading information about virotherapy, the methodology, and possibilities of modern medicine.

Since my story is highly illustrative and, unfortunately, few patients want to talk about their disease and treatment, I endeavor to use every opportunity to help others in finding the right way to fight, to take the smallest chance to survive.

This is my first climb. I have never climbed mountains. But I will do it for virotherapy! I really hope that we are going to make it.

More information about Kristina’s case can be found: 

APMIS