My name is Oleksandra Mykoliuk and I was born in 05.05.1998 in Donetsk. During three years I’m studying and enjoying every day of my life in Prague. There is a huge time whole between those two cities that defined me as a person in the body I’m living in. Usually after meeting people ask me to tell something about myself.Commonly they interrupt me in the middle of my story and suggest me to send the scenery of my life to Hollywood film makers.
When I was three years old I started doing rhythmic gymnastics sport and also I was one of the lovely smiling kids from the poster advertising kids clothes .It was really hard to strike a balance between modeling, school, sports, English and French lessons, so that my parents decided to take out of my life the least important-modeling. It was a wise move because sports gave me a backbone, fortitude and it taught me to fight for what I want in life and never give in; language skills gave me an opportunity to communicate freely and to gain knowledge without restriction. What about modeling? Of course, it’s undoubtedly awesome to be a covergirl, but meanwhile it’s better to make a complete person from yourself.
When I was eleven years old, I was already shining on pedestals of different tournaments and countries, but in one moment my life divided on two parts -before and after. I have been diagnosed with the forth oncology disease in my life. That time it was cancer of the base of the skull.During the last year of my life that seemed to be “normal”, I didn’t understand why every day after training
I have terrible headaches and why am I fainting in the middle of my performance at the international tournament. But a day later after this situation mother told me to miss the school and instead of the lessons we went to the hospital. Further it was no longer an issue to think about future championships and good marks at school. Those important things for me were replaced by endless hours of waiting for the next “I’m sorry, we can’t do anything” from another doctor. My struggle for survival began with understanding that’s if I give up my parents attempts to save my life will become pointless. I have always been thinking that I am positive and crazily life-loving child and after I realized that my parents need to see hope in my eyes I decided to keep this way of feeling the world not only for myself, but also for my parents.
They called me the sunniest child of the whole hospital. During the medical bypass doctors were reading my medical history before visiting my hospital room and they were ready to see everything except the girl doing stretching between two chairs. Meanwhile doctors were really afraid of me, because it was 80% risk that if I survive I’ll be completely paralyzed, but I was only smiling in response and telling that I’m stronger than my disease.
Time was running really fast, but the same can’t be said about 14 hours that my mom and dad spent for praying and waiting.
I remember tears on my mother’s cheeks, when I moved my finger. I remember pride father’s eyes, when I got out of a wheelchair. We overcame the most difficult period in our lifes, and triumphed over impossible. From that moment I understood that every second in my life worth it’s weight in gold. I was forbidden for me to go back to sport again, but out of sheer spite I got back in shape in three years and then I achieved the Master of Sports the titule that I’m very proud of.
At that moment in time I thought that all the difficulties are left behind, but I was mistaking. May 1st (2014) military hardware and tanks entered to my city and the war began. To say that I was scared it’s to say nothing. I was only 16 when I realized that schools in my city may not be opened by the beginning of the of the academic year and may not survive after that amount of bombs that fallen near my house. There was no time to cry about what happened, I needed to find an opportunity to finish school somewhere far from exploding bombs. I graduated in Sevastopol. In completely strange city for of the completely strange country for me. During that challenging time I was comforting myself with the thought that soon my big dream will come true and I will move to the best town in the world – Prague.
I dreamed of studying here on the faculty of international relations and it was not only an area that seemed to be interesting. For me it became a knowledge that I can get and use to improve this world.
Nowadays I understand that every day is a big happiness. Happiness is to be myself, and to be responsible for every move I take. Happiness is to hug my closest person and to say how I appreciate him or her. Happiness is to be heard and to share the story with you.
