Onco-logica

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Stories about life "before" and "after" cancer.

On the occasion of World Cancer Day (February 4), the Oncologica Foundation, which helps adults with cancer and their families, talked to the wards of the organization in remission about how their attitude to life has changed after the diagnosis. The NGO has released a video with four stories of heroes of different ages who have overcome various diseases. In the video, onco patients explain how the diagnosis divided their life into "before" and "after" — and how the fight against the disease helped them see their real desires or find new supports.

"You stop pretending, you stop lying to someone, you don't eat when you don't like it, you don't climb over the fence if you don't want it, you don't go to work if you don't like it. You're living your best life. Because there is no other. Isn't it cool?", says Evgenia Konstantinova, who faced cancer at the age of 32.

In total, Oncologika talked to 13 wards for the project: their quotes can be seen on billboards in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. Struggling with cancer, they promised themselves never to "waste time on something that does not bring joy," never to "focus only on work" or never to "chase false goals."

"Together with the SETTERS communication agency, we have launched a project that shows how a person's logic changes after cancer. For example, after the victory over cancer, I began to appreciate every moment of life even more, love the different weather outside and feel the real taste of life. The heroes of the video are wards of the foundation, each of them has their own history of fighting cancer diagnosis, which forever changed their logic. An adult is a key person in the family, elderly parents, children and pets depend on him. Cancer is a serious disease that is difficult to cope with alone. But together we can survive," said Olga Sergeenko, founder and president of the Oncologica Foundation.

"It was an unusual and complex project. Difficult for many reasons: the topic of oncology itself and how to talk about it carefully and how to approach it in general, working with real patients, because every interview is a new experience, and also a sudden realization of how little we ourselves (and everyone around us) know about adult cancer patients.

Unusual — because we found a lot of inspiration in it, realizing that the daily habitual complaints about trifles are really our usual logic. And patients who have gone through cancer have a radically different view of the world, despite the real difficulties. This is the paradox from which our idea came out," shared Alexander Alkhimenkov, creative director of SETTERS.