Zhanna Friske returned to Moscow: how was the first week at home

After a long break, the singer finally returned to Moscow. For more than a year, Zhanna Friske has been struggling with a terrible diagnosis. For those people who are also faced with oncology, its history is hope and support. But there are more examples among Russian celebrities who have defeated cancer. They often spoke on this topic only once and try not to return to it anymore. Woman’s Day has collected stellar stories of fighting cancer.

October 27 2014

“Houses and walls help,” the singer said by phone to her friend Anastasia Kalmanovich. Indeed, in her hometown, Jeanne’s life is not like a hospital regime. She walks dogs, goes to local restaurants, does fitness and takes care of her one and a half year old son Plato. According to the doctors, Zhanna is doing everything right. Their main advice to those recovering from a long oncology treatment is to return to their usual life as soon as possible. If the strength allows and there is no allergy caused by medications, you should not limit yourself: you can eat whatever you want, go in for sports, and travel. Over the past year and a half, Zhanna Friske could not afford so many liberties. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor on June 24 last year. Until January, her family fought a terrible ordeal on their own. But then the singer’s father Vladimir and common-law husband Dmitry Shepelev were forced to seek help.

“Since June 24.06.13, 104, Zhanna has been undergoing treatment in an American clinic, the cost was $ 555,00,” Vladimir Borisovich wrote to Rusfond. – On July 29.07.2013, 170, it was decided to continue treatment in a German clinic, where the cost of treatment was 083,68 euros. Due to the complicated diagnosis and treatment plan, the funds for the provision of medical care are practically exhausted, and I ask you to help pay … ”They were not left in trouble. For several days, Channel One and Rusfond raised 68 rubles, half of which Zhanna donated to the treatment of eight children with cancer.

Jeanne took up herself, it seems, with double zeal. Together with her husband, they were looking for the best doctors around the world. We took a course in New York, then in Los Angeles, and by May the singer got better. Friske moved to Latvia, got up from the wheelchair and began to walk on her own, her eyesight returned to her. She spent the whole summer on the seashore in the company of close people – husband, son, mother and friend Olga Orlova. The singer even brought her beloved dogs to her home in the Baltics.

“In June of this year, 25 rubles remained in the singer’s reserve,” Rusfond reported. “According to reports from relatives, Zhanna is now feeling better, but the disease has not yet receded.” But it didn’t seem to get any worse either. And Jeanne decided to change the Baltic Sea for her own home. In Moscow, the family returned to business as usual: Zhanna’s dad flew on a business trip to Dubai, Natasha’s sister went to the clinic for nose surgery, the singer and her mother are doing Plato, and her husband is working. During the week that his wife spent at home, he managed to fly to Vilnius and Kazakhstan. “I’m afraid of my desires. He dreamed of a taste of the touring life: concerts, moving. And I move almost every day. But the trouble is, I’m not a rock star, ”the TV presenter joked. But on any free day Dmitry rushes to his family: “Sunday with his wife and child is priceless. Happy”.

Joseph Kobzon: “Fear not illness, but bed addiction”

Cancer was diagnosed in 2002, then the singer fell into a coma for 15 days, in 2005 and 2009 in Germany he underwent two operations to remove the tumor.

“One wise doctor told me:“ Fear not illness, but bed addiction. This is the closest path to death. ” It’s hard, I don’t want to, I don’t have the strength, I’m not in the mood, depression – whatever you want, but you have to force yourself to get out of bed and do something. I spent 15 days in a coma. When I woke up, I needed to feed me, because the antibiotics washed out all the mucous membrane. And it was impossible even to look at food, let alone what to eat – it was immediately bad. But Nellie forced me, I swore, resisted, but she did not give up, – Joseph recalled in a conversation with “Antenna”. – Nelly helped me in everything. When I was unconscious, the doctors threw up their hands and said that they could not help. His wife returned them to the intensive care unit and said: “I will not let you out of here, you must save him, he is still needed.” And they were on duty at night and saved. While I was in the hospital, Nelly and I watched films. For the first time I saw all the series “The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed”, “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and “Love and Doves”. Before that, I had not seen anything, there was no time.

You know, having survived such a terrible ordeal, I looked at my life differently. I began to be weighed down by idle meetings and idle pastime. I began to dislike restaurants where you spend your time aimlessly. You understand that you are old and every hour, every day is dear. You sit for three, four hours. I understand that I need to come to congratulate, but it’s a pity for time. I would have done better, done something useful, called the necessary phone numbers. Only because of Nellie I go to these meetings. Every time I ask her: “Doll, I can’t sit any longer, we have been sitting for three hours, let’s go.” “Well, wait, now I’ll have some tea,” Nelly replies with a smile. And I am patiently waiting. “

Laima Vaikule: “I hated everyone who is healthy”

In 1991, the singer was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her life hung in the balance, doctors said that Lyme was “for” 20%, and “against” – 80%.

“I was told that I was in the last stage. It took 10 years not to go to the doctors to start myself like that, – admitted Vaikule in one of the television programs dedicated to the topic of cancer. – When you get so sick, you want to close in a shell and be alone with your misfortune. There is a desire not to tell anyone. However, it is impossible to overcome this fear on your own. The first stage of the disease – you go to bed and click your teeth in fear. The second stage is hatred towards everyone who is healthy. I remember how my musicians sat around me and said: “I ought to buy shoes for the kid.” And I hated them: “What kind of shoes? It doesn’t matter that much! ” But now I can say that this serious illness has made me better. Before that, I was very straightforward. I remember how I condemned my friends who ate herring, potatoes, looked at them and thought: “God, what a horror, here they are sitting, drinking, eating all sorts of rubbish, and tomorrow they will sleep, and I will run at 9 am. Why do they live at all? ” Now I don’t think so. ”

Vladimir Pozner: “Sometimes I cried”

Twenty years ago, in the spring of 1993, American doctors told the TV presenter that he had cancer.

“I remember the moment when I was told that I have cancer. There was a feeling that I flew into a brick wall at full speed. I was thrown away, I was knocked out, – Posner frankly admitted in one of the interviews. – I am a resisting person by nature. The first reaction was associated with the fact that I was only 59 years old, I still wanted to live. Then I belonged to the majority, which believes: if cancer, then everything. But then I began to talk about it with my friends, and they wondered: what are you? Do you know what you are saying? First, check the diagnosis – go to another doctor. If confirmed, move on. Which I did.

It was in America, at that time I was working with Phil Donahue, who became a close friend to me. We found out who is “number one” in this area in the United States, found Dr. Patrick Walsh (Professor Patrick Walsh, director of the Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute. – Ed.). Phil, who was very famous at the time, called him and asked me to advise. I came with slides and hoped it was a mistake. The doctor says, “No, not a mistake.” – “So what’s next?” “Definitely an operation. You caught the disease very early, and I guarantee you that everything will be fine. ” I was surprised: how can anything be guaranteed, this is cancer. The doctor says: “I have been working in this area all my life and I give you a guarantee. But you need to be operated as quickly as possible. “

There was no chemistry or radiation. The operation itself was not easy. When I left the hospital, my strength left me for a while. It did not last long, about a week, then I somehow managed to tune in. Not myself, of course. Phil, his wife, my wife helped me with a very ordinary attitude. I kept listening to see if there was something fake in their voices. But no one pitied me, no one looked at me surreptitiously with eyes full of tears. I don’t know how my wife succeeded, but she became a very big support for me. Because I myself sometimes cried.

I realized that cancer should be treated as a problem to be solved. But at the same time, understand that we are all mortal and bear responsibility to our loved ones. You need to think more about them than about yourself, and put things in order. But the most important thing is not to be afraid. It is very important. One must internally say to oneself and one’s illness: but no! You will not get it!”

Daria Dontsova: “Oncology is a sign that you are not living the right way”

The diagnosis of “breast cancer” in 1998 was made to an unknown writer when the disease was already at its last stage. Doctors did not give predictions, but Daria was able to recover, and then she became the official ambassador of the program “Together Against Breast Cancer” and wrote her first best-selling detective story.

“If you have been diagnosed with oncology, this does not mean that the next stop is“ crematorium ”. Everything is healed! – the writer told Antenna. – Of course, the first thought that arises: how is it, the sun is shining, and I will die ?! The main thing is not to let this thought take root, otherwise it will eat you. I must say: “It’s not so scary, I can handle it.” And build your life so that death has no opportunity to wedge itself between your affairs. I do not like the words “look at me”, but in this case I say that. Fifteen years ago, I was not yet a well-known writer and was treated in an ordinary city free hospital. In one year I underwent radiation and chemotherapy, three operations, removed my mammary glands and ovaries. I took hormones for another five years. All my hair fell out after chemotherapy. It was unpleasant, hard, sometimes painful to be treated, but I recovered, so you can too!

Oncology is an indication that you lived somehow wrong, you need to change. How? Everyone comes up with their own way. Anything bad that happens to us is good. Years go by, and you realize that if the disease hadn’t hit you on the forehead, you would not have achieved what you have now. I started writing in the intensive care unit of an oncological hospital. My first book came out when I was finishing my chemotherapy course. Now I do not pay attention to trifles and am happy every day. The sun is shining – it’s wonderful, because I might not have seen this day! “

Emmanuel Vitorgan: “My wife did not say that I have cancer”

The Russian actor was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1987. His wife Alla Balter persuaded the doctors not to tell him the diagnosis. So, before the operation, Vitorgan thought that he had tuberculosis.

“Everyone said that I had tuberculosis. Then I abruptly quit smoking … And only after the operation, right in the hospital ward, the doctors accidentally let slip, apparently relaxed, realized that everything was fine. They said it was cancer. “

Cancer returned 10 years later. Not to him, to his wife.

“We fought for three years, and each year ended in victory, Allochka returned to the profession again, played in performances. Three years. And then they couldn’t. I was ready to give my life for Allochka to live.

When Allochka passed away, I thought that there was no reason for me to continue living. I must end my stay. Ira (the artist’s second wife – approx. Woman’s Day) made her way through everything and everyone. Thanks to her, I realized that a person has no right to dispose of his life in this way. “

Lyudmila Ulitskaya: “I wrote a book instead of treatment”

In the family of the writer, almost everyone, with a few exceptions, died of cancer. Therefore, she was to some extent prepared for the fact that this ailment would affect her. In order to get ahead of the disease, Ulitskaya underwent examination every year. It was only when breast cancer was discovered that he was already three years old. How she managed to cope with the disease, Lyudmila described in her book “Sacred Garbage”.

“The drops really do knock all the time. We do not hear these drops behind the bustle of everyday life – joyful, heavy, varied. But suddenly – not a melodic chime of a drop, but a distinct signal: Life is short! Death is greater than life! She is already here, next to you! And no crafty Nabokov’s distortions. I received this reminder in early 2010.

There was a cancer predisposition. Almost all of my relatives of the older generation died from cancer: mother, father, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-grandfather … From different types of cancer, at different ages: my mother at 53, great-grandfather at 93. Thus, I was not in the dark about my prospects … As a civilized person, I visited doctors with a certain frequency, made the appropriate checks. In our God-protected fatherland, women undergo ultrasound scans until they are sixty years old, and mammograms after sixty.

I attended these inspections quite carefully, despite the fact that in our country a negligent attitude towards oneself, fear of doctors, a fatalistic attitude towards life and death, laziness and a special Russian quality of “do not care” are rooted. This picture would be incomplete if I had not added that the Moscow doctors who did the tests did not notice my tumor for at least three years. But I learned this after the operation.

I flew to Israel. There is an institute there that I did not know about – the institute of psychological assistance, there are psychologists who work with cancer patients to help them understand this situation, to understand their capabilities in it, to understand how it should behave. At this point, we just have a white spot. Unfortunately, I am not able to change anything in the healthcare system, but the attitude towards patients is what I learned from this experience. Maybe someone will find it useful

Everything unfolded very quickly: a new biopsy showed a type of carcinoma that reacts sluggishly to chemistry and seems to be more aggressive than adenocarcinoma. Mammary cancer. Labial, that is, ductal – why the diagnosis is difficult.

may 13. They took away the left breast. Technically awesome. It didn’t hurt at all. Tonight, I’m lying, reading, listening to music. Anesthesia is brilliant plus two injections in the back, in the roots of the nerves that innervate the chest: they were blocked! No pain. A vial with a vacuum drainage hangs on the left. 75 ml of blood. On the right is a transfusion cannula. Introduced an antibiotic just in case.

Ten days later, they reported that a second operation was needed, since they found a cell in one of the five glands, where the express analysis showed nothing. The second operation is scheduled for June 3, under the arm. In time, it lasts a little less, but in principle, everything is the same: anesthesia, the same drainage, the same healing. Maybe more painful. And then – the options: there will definitely be 5 years of the hormone, there may be local irradiation, and the worst option is 8 series of chemotherapy with an interval of 2 weeks, exactly 4 months. I don’t know how not to make plans, but now it seems the worst to finish treatment in October. Although there are still many very bad options. My stage is the third in our opinion. Armpit metastases.

I still have time to think about what happened to me. Now they are undergoing chemotherapy. Then there will be more radiation. Doctors give a good prognosis. They considered that I had many chances to jump out of this story alive. But I know that no one can get out of this story alive. A remarkably simple and clear thought came to my mind: illness is a matter of life, not death. And the matter is only in what gait we will leave the last house in which we find ourselves.

You see, the good thing about illness is that it sets a new system of coordinates, brings new dimensions to life. What is important and not important is not in the place where you placed them earlier. For a long time I could not understand that I first need to be cured, and then finish writing the book on which I was working at that time. “

Alexander Buinov: “I had half a year to live”

The wife of Alexander Buinov also concealed the diagnosis. The doctors first told her that the singer had prostate cancer.

“Once Buinov told me:“ If something happens to me due to illness and I cannot be healthy and strong for you, I will shoot myself like Hemingway! ” – said Alena Buinova in one of the television programs. – And I wanted only one thing – for him to live! Therefore, I had to show that everything is fine! So that my beloved Buinov would not guess anything! “

“She hid that I had six months to live if the situation suddenly got out of control. My wife gave me faith in life! And I wish everyone to have a spouse like mine! ” – Buinov admired later.

To protect her husband from trouble and support him in a terrible moment, Alena, together with Alexander, went to the clinic, where they cut out his prostate with a tumor focus.

“For about a month we lay on the beds next to each other in the oncology center. I tried to show Buinov that life goes on as usual. That he needs to start working, that a team that has been with him for more than 15 years awaits him. And already on the 10th day after the operation with three tubes in the stomach, my husband was working. And three weeks later he was already singing in front of a special-purpose detachment in Pyatigorsk. And no one even thought to ask about his health! “

Yuri Nikolaev: “Forbidden to feel sorry for himself”

In 2007, the artist was diagnosed with a fatal bowel cancer.

“When it sounded:“ You have bowel cancer, ”the world seemed to have turned black. But what is important is to be able to mobilize right away. I forbade myself to feel sorry for myself, “Nikolayev admitted.

Friends offered him treatment in clinics in Switzerland, Israel, Germany, but Yuri basically chose domestic treatment and did not regret it. He underwent a complex operation to remove the tumor and a course of chemotherapy.

Yuri Nikolaev practically does not remember the postoperative period. At first, the TV presenter did not want to see anyone, he tried to spend as much time as possible alone with himself. Today he is sure that faith in God helped him to survive this time.

Elena Selina, Elena Rogatko

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