“Everything is Personal” – My Confession

“You don’t have a cancer, enjoy”, I was 12 years old when I heard these words. This “useful” advice was given to my father by the doctor who signed my grandmother’s death certificate. It was raining outside, the cold was stiffening my legs, but what the doctor said didn’t come out of my child’s head. I was so shocked and confused by what I heard that I couldn’t even assimilate what this man meant. But let me give you the background story…

When my grandmother was diagnosed with skin cancer, I was very young and I wondered why everyone was crying. Well, a year later I found out. She lost her hair, melted from the chemotherapy, and pieces of her peeling skin were spread throughout our house. The pain was so severe that the tormented moans were part of our daily reality. I’m not going to tell you descriptively how this changed my family’s life, but you can imagine how helpless you feel when you cannot save a loved one.

That is why the words of this doctor stabbed me in the heart: the lack of humanity, empathy and understanding that you don’t need to be sick to give a piece of yourself to another who has lost a loved one.

A few years later, my stepfather took his last breath in my arms. Out of grief, my mother became ill. I also had to take care of my little brother. I started working, before I was an adult, to take care of my family. I washed dishes in a pizzeria, but I was not ashamed, I was not proud, I was crushed.

Two years later, my mother was also diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. I wanted to die, literally. I couldn’t take it anymore, I didn’t have the strength to go through it again. For better or worse, this happened in October. I came across a breast cancer campaign and got in touch with people who knew what cancer was, people whose loved ones were sick, people who only guessed what cancer is, but had opened their hearts to help. Then I asked myself: Why only in October? Why do we make the choice to be human only 31 days a year?!

I will not describe what kind of hell we went through, but after 7 years of struggle between life and death, my mother is in remission, enjoying every moment of her life and helping other people. I would be lying if I say that this insidious disease did not cause irreparable physical and mental damage to her and our family, but she is ALIVE!

When we created Kelvin Health, each of us had a personal mission, and this is mine. What I have experienced is also the reason for my inspiration and dedication to work. That’s why, dear people, for me this topic is titled: “Everything is personal”. Every little thing I do during the day is refracted through the prism of salvation and the change in the black statistics of this deadly disease.

When your mission is to save lives, you have no excuse to be anything but a good example!

Tanya Raynova, Co-founder of Kelvin Health