The most important thing in the cure and, better still, preventive treatment of any disease is information. The latter is indispensable for human culture, particularly, the culture of attitude to your own health. Take, for example, the information that a timely diagnosed melanoma, or skin cancer, is fully curable—in some cases, even during a single surgical intervention at an out-patient clinic. Yet in Ukraine these diseases claim the lives of 95 percent of patients, with only 5 percent surviving, while in the US it is just the reverse.
Paradoxically, the technology for early diagnosis and treatment is in place, but people turn to doctors too late. This “mega problem” prompted Olha Bohomolets, a professor at Kyiv Oleksandr Bohomolets National Medical University, to organize the All-Ukrainian Charitable Health Marathon last February, when specialists examined a number of orphans and children in low-income families. Some state-run institutions, such as Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukraine’s railway authority) and the OKHMADYT children’s clinic, have now joined this initiative and undertaken the mission of informing the populace about the danger of birthmark degeneration and skin-cancer-related hazards.
“LIFE AND DEATH BORDER GUARDS”
On May 21, on the initiative of Dr. Bohomolets, Ukraine for the first time took part in marking Melanoma Awareness Day and, on June 6, the journalist community celebrated Ukrainian Journalist Day. Dr. Bohomolets, a doctor, a singer-songwriter, and a collector, successfully combined the two occasions: she spoke on urgent problems and exalted spiritual matters at her Radomyshl ancestral estate, which is going to host a museum shortly. First, about pressing matters.
“Our marathon is a heart-felt cry, because I could no longer put up with the situation and look every day in the eyes of the people who kept visiting me and my colleagues. When I studied in the US 15 years ago, I came to know that a mere 5 percent of melanoma patients eventually die, while the rest recover. In Ukraine it is the other way round. Moreover, the problem had been spreading like wildfire with each passing year. I decided to buck the trend, and I was to begin with human culture. I had drawn up a program, but it fizzled out as the Ministry of Public Health demanded more and more signatures. So we practically did it with our own efforts,” Dr. Bohomolets says.
The specialists chose the most underprivileged ones—children from low-income families and orphans who, to quote Dr. Bohomolets, “are waiting for mother until they are 18, then give birth to and abandon the child.” The doctors even assessed the approximate number of such children in all the regions: about 3,000–10,000 in each.
Why children? Experts say that the situation with the above-mentioned skin diseases is being aggravated with each passing year, and not only in Ukraine. The cause is the thinning of the ozone layer through which more and more space radiation is getting to the Earth. Besides, Dr. Bohomolets says, skin tumors are now the No.1 malign neoplasm, and while it was difficult to find a child with this malady just a few decades ago (this usually occurred among the elderly), now parents of children and teenagers are increasingly turning to doctors.
“There are sunbed and tanning booth advertisements galore, a suntanned body is much in vogue, plus the unhealthy way of life… In addition, parents are, unfortunately, unaware of how dangerous sunburns can be to children. Suppose a small child goes out on a beach for the first time in their life. He or she can get burnt by the sun. The burn may pass in the course of time, but it has already been recorded in the body’s memory, and this memory may show up in the most unfavorable moment,” Dr. Bohomolets emphasizes.
This is why her team focuses on children. They have examined thousands and found dozens of the affected in some regions. The worst situation is in the Crimea. It took the doctors three months to get through to that place: they had to explain to the authorities that the aim of their visit was not a publicity stunt or a political ploy but a sincere desire to help.
“In some regions we were denied access to children because the city mayor supported one political party and the oblast administration head, a different one. In one of such oblasts, we managed to gather urban children only. To tell the truth, before holding the Health Marathon, I turned to President Viktor Yushchenko, a former patient of mine, and he sent a letter of support. Still, both the examination of children and the press conference were foiled in Luhansk. But we at least managed to contact doctors, parents, and journalists,” Dr. Bohomolets reminisces.
The next leg of the marathon is about working with dermatologists and oncologists throughout Ukraine. Dr. Bohomolets and her team insist that they know how to change the situation in Ukraine and dream that in a five years’ time every child will know, as their US peers do now, when they should go to a dermatologist and how to identify the signs or hazards of birthmark degeneration.
There is a simple ABCD guideline for suspecting a potentially malign tumor, in which the initials stand for: Asymmetry - the mole is not round, Border - the mole’s border is not well-defined, Color - the mole is dark or varied in color, and Diameter - the mole is greater than 6mm in size. Although some doctors take a dim view of such medical examinations, Olha Bohomolets still calls them “life and death border guards.” Incidentally, the Bohomolets Institute uses the MoleMax digital epiluminescence microscopy, the most reliable and non-injurious method for early spotting of birthmark degeneration, which permits the doctor to see the changes that occur in the deeper layers of skin without impairing skin integrity.
CASED IN GRANITE
Meanwhile, Dr. Bohomolets does nor forger about beauty: wherever she comes as part of her charitable medical program, she gives her concerts. Bohomolets and her husband Oleksii Sheremetiev are now establishing a museum at the place of an almost ruined paper-making and printing shop in Radomyshl, a district center in Zhytomyr oblast. There will be a genuine print shop in one building (it is expected to begin functioning next year) and a museum in another, a six-storied castle-like structure. The museum rooms will be displaying Sheremetiev’s historical maps, of which he has a huge number, a collection of over 5,000 Dr. Bohomolets’ icons, and other exhibits. For example, even now one can see an exhibition of old Hutsul coffers on the first floor.
The very place in which this manor, as well as Radomyshl itself, is located is interesting. It is a continuous granite plateau. These granite slabs look very picturesque on the nearby river and lake banks: they form small water cascades and even waterfalls in which local children and adults take a dip as you can hear their never-ending clamor.
The paper-making shop itself, now looking like a medieval castle, was built for centuries on end, so to speak. For instance, its walls are 1.2–1.4-meter thick, and one can see dozens of kilometers of the road from a seven-tier tower. A good and unique fortification tower. By the way, it has no foundation, for how can you dig if there is granite beneath your feet?
This means the paper shop literally fused with the granite. It is in this strategically important place that Kyiv Cave Monastery monks used to build bookshops in the 17th century. The books were intended for the most educated ones—the clergy. Incidentally, to clean up the lake and the river, one had to collect about 60 tons of garbage. After this, as Dr. Bohomolets recalls, springs of clear water began to jet near the place.
“In 1612 Yelysei Pletinetsky, who had come here from Lviv, built Ukraine’s first paper-making shop, a very valuable facility at the time, when books were an effective weapon, especially against the Church Union. So this territory was chosen on purpose. The almost 90-square-meter lake was also of importance,” Sheremetiev says.
Unfortunately, today the book has lost the powerful role it played four decades ago among the masses, but museum visitors will soon be able to see and even try to manufacture paper on their own. All they will have to do is bring along the material (natural, of course).
“It will be possible to make paper from flax fibers, nettles, and even old jeans—then it will be of a soothing indigo color,” Dr. Bohomolets says smiling. “The paper will be the way it used to be—thick and strong, and it will endure far longer than the one now made from wood. I think we will be also making ink here.”
The hosts insist that there will be nothing but a museum here, for some interested people have already been coming and asking if there would be a casino, a bar, or a sauna down here. “People do not believe there will be a museum here; they even throw bricks into the windows,” Bohomolets says in anguish. But the work is continuing: those who wish can be lifted in a basket up the 7-story tower to take a look at the wonderful landscape.
There are not so many instances when people combine the down-to-earth and the eternal in their life. Obviously, not all of them will have enough energy to do so much work, in addition to caring for themselves and their children. But as Dr. Bohomolets, a fourth-generation doctor, talks about the unique icons on the walls, oak-tree pillars in the paper shop, or the island of lovers near the museum, she is trying to put across the principal idea: Health Marathon, melanoma, children. For life is beautiful. It will remain beautiful if we show more respect to ourselves.
