Kristine Kvitsaridze moved to Dublin from Georgia with her husband in 2022. Later that year, she developed a hacking cough;  the 32-year-old visited her GP, but there was several months delay in getting an X-ray. The cough didn’t clear up and she visited the Mater Hospital’s emergency department, in March 2023.  “They did a lot of investigations into my cough, and I was told that I needed a biopsy,” she says. Kristine then had a second biopsy. 

“I remember sitting on a bed, waiting to hear the results. Several doctors entered the room and gave me my probable diagnosis, a rare form of thymus cancer, B2 thymoma,” she says. “I told them, ‘I am Kristine, I am 32 years old and I am Georgian. I want you to remember who and what I am. I know what is happening and I will deal with it, and I also know what can await me. But I want you to remember that my time has not run out in this world’. I think my doctors were surprised by my attitude. They said I was unique.” 

Nonetheless, it was a horrible shock for the safety officer. Her husband, Levan, was with her when she got the devastating news, and he was naturally very upset.I asked him to leave me alone for five minutes, and I cried because when you hear the word cancer, you think about the worst possible outcome. I was only 32, and so far from my country.  “But I knew I had to find some positive side to this new terrible situation in my life. From the moment I found out, I said I would do whatever I needed or have whatever treatment was required to save my life.”  

She began a course of chemotherapy. “I really worked on myself to be positive during treatment,” she says. “Every morning, I repeated to myself in the mirror that I couldn’t see a world without it and it was not time to give up.” 

Her treatment, which lasted for three months, was a success and after four rounds of chemo, her 17cm thymic tumour had shrunk. “Getting this exciting news was wonderful,” she says. “I am so appreciative of my oncologist and the hospital because they were wonderful, and so professional and they successfully treated my cancer. I am now healthy and full of love for life. Getting cancer was a big challenge, and it was also surprising because it strengthened me and allowed me to get to know myself better. I hope that my story serves as an example for anyone who thinks that there is no comeback from a cancer diagnosis.” 

Kristine also says, “I would like to say a few words of thanks to the Irish Cancer Society for  Daffodil Day, as your support is very important to us as cancer patients. Thank you for being a ray of hope for many people in this world.”