Rita's brave cancer fight!

This fundraiser is for my old friend Margarita (lovingly called Rita by her friends and family). Margarita is 30 years old and she comes from a great family. She is a very smart, funny, caring and loving person. She is the type of person that you instantly want to be friends with.

Margarita spent first years of her adult life in New Zealand and was planning to build a life here when the most unfortunate happened and she was forced to return back to Russia.

For the past 10 years Rita has been battling blood cancer called Hodgkin Lymphoma. The most devastating part of the story, however, is not the terrible disease, but how badly Russian medical and funding systems have failed Rita.

For the longest time Rita's condition remained misdiagnosed and consequently mistreated making matters worse. It's heartbreaking to hear Rita's recollections of her interactions with doctors, most of whom have simply written her off (yet years later she is still with us and fighting)... Following a decade of incorrect treatment, Rita’s cancer cells have developed resistance to chemotherapy.

After a long and treacherous search Rita is finally in the hands of one of Russia's top specialists who believes that her only chance for survival is a drug called Adcetris (Brentuximab vedotin). According to him Rita has a very strong chance of not only surviving, but being cured of cancer once and for all using this treatment.

Currently Adcetris is only funded for treatment of Hodgkin Lymphoma in USA and Germany. In many other countries it is accessible via clinical trials or can be administered if privately sourced.

Unfortunately due to prior history of treatment Rita does not fit the criteria required for a clinical trial, so that leaves private funding.

The cost of one treatment is NZD 6,400 (4,700 USD). Rita needs 3 treatments per course and 10-12 courses in total. Once started the treatment must be completed (i.e. it cannot be done in stages), so the whole amount of NZD 230,000 (USD 170,000) needs to be raised upfront in a short period of time.

One would think that Rita could apply to various charities to source those funds. Here again she is out of luck. You see in Russia most charities support children under 18 and in rare cases young adults under 25. Rita is now 30. The 10 years of being treated "for the wrong thing with the wrong stuff" have not only wrecked havoc on Rita's health, but robbed her of an opportunity to get funding for the life saving treatment she so desperately needs.

So this left Rita no choice but to beg the rest of the world to help save her life. Knowing her independent and proud self, it must have been the hardest thing to do. Yet I am so thankful that she did.

Rita’s friends all over the world are trying to raise the required funds. Her plea to us two weeks ago was to help her survive, help her reach her many goals and dreams, help her lead a healthy and happy live.

Rita jokes that her life does have a price and it’s USD 170,000. I believe we can help her reach that.

We are asking you to donate whatever you can because every dollar counts.

The clock is ticking, but Rita is certainly not ready to give up!

P.S. I will be posting updates on this page as Rita’s friends around the world donate via other channels to give an insight of how we are tracking against the total NZD 230,000 goal.

Any funds collected via this page that for whatever reason are no longer required for purchasing Rita's medication will be donated to Leukaemia & Blood Cancer NZ.