For most people, managing one career, mastering a sport, or overcoming a major medical challenge are the work of a lifetime. ABAA-member Zhenya Dzhavgova, owner of ZH Books in Fremont, California, has done all these and more in a very short time, as well as successfully navigating the shifting sands of integrating into a new culture, language, and most-recently parenthood.
After moving to the US and completing her education, Dzhavgova got involved in the antiquarian book world, and via the well-worn path of Colorado Antiquarian Book School (CABS) and the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School (RBS) established herself as a specialist on Slavic and Eastern European books. In 2016, she became a member of the ABAA, but thereafter her story diverged from the “typical” path of an antiquarian bookseller.
Her odyssey began in the summer of 2021, in the middle of a global pandemic, when Dzhavgova was diagnosed with breast cancer, and not one, but two types at that! Here is the story of her medical odyssey in her own words:
I have been told I had pretty much achieved an impossible goal. I am a former athlete, I eat a healthy diet, I never do drugs, I am active, I had always been very healthy, until I wasn’t!
Exactly two years ago, at the end of Summer 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic during a routine checkup – I was diagnosed with not one, but two types of breast cancer. I was 41, with a 4-year-old daughter. Even worse, it turned out that MRI, the most advanced imaging available for these types of cancer, did not work with me. Not unheard of, but very rare — the muscles and tissue were so dense, the images did not show the whole extent of the damage and the doctors were largely going in blindly. The good news was that the cancers were caught early and I did not need chemo or radiation, but I did undergo four major surgeries, many hours under anesthesia, in three months. Even better, all the genetic tests the doctors did showed that the nightmare was not hereditary, which meant I hadn’t passed them on to my daughter and the chances of them coming back were small.
Here is the moment to give credit to and thank the ABAA and the book trade and my doctors. The entire team of surgeons, nurses, and technicians did everything possible to move quickly and aggressively and I believe they went above and beyond their duty. They were the ultimate professionals AND humans. In the meantime, word spread around and my colleagues jumped in to help immediately. Susan Benne and the Benevolent Fund Committee immediately sent money to help with medical expenses. Friends in the book trade, including Lorne Bair Rare Books, James Arsenault and Co., Kate Mitas, Bookseller, Marc Selvaggio, Bookseller, Tavistock Books, and many others I do not have the space to mention sent food gift cards, and flowers, and letters, and immediate household help… I was overwhelmed, not by the disease, but by the outpouring of support. By Christmas of that year, I was pronounced good to go. Throughout it all, I continued working, cataloging, and getting ready for the ABAA fair in Oakland. That was that and life was good.
Exactly a year after I was diagnosed with the cancers, in August of 2022, came the second part of the adventure, which was an astounding study of a series of “right people at the right place at the right time.” I have no recollection of the morning leading to and of the event itself and the story has been cobbled together from secondary sources – my daughter, my husband, and the doctors. Earlier in the year, we had looked into signing our very-active kid up for martial arts, and more specifically, for Taekwondo. We chose Mach Martial Arts, here in Fremont, and we loved it from her very first class – Master Nile, the assistant instructors, the dojang, the attitude, the discipline, everything. Fast forward to August, I was told Mach had an adult class and was invited to observe it and possibly consider signing up for it. I had always liked the idea of martial arts and I saw how happy my daughter was with them, so I did visit one of the night classes and my last memory was of my telling them I was ready to commit to attending. The very next morning, I was told, started as a typical day – I got the kid up and ready, I loaded her in the car, and started driving her to an early vaccine appointment and then to school. At one point, she said I told her I was suddenly feeling very sick and I was turning around and going back home. I commented it was strange I had felt perfectly fine up until minutes earlier. Meanwhile, my husband always leaves early, because of a hellish commute, and in his place of work he often does not have cell reception. This particular morning, for once, he was delayed in Fremont running business errands. Back at the house, I got my daughter to play quietly and called him and told him something was very wrong. He came back quickly, took one look at me, and the three of us went to the hospital.
While I was in the ER, actually inside with the doctor, I died. It sounds overly dramatic, but it is true. One second I was talking, the next I went quiet in the middle of a sentence and into a full cardiac arrest – no heartbeat, no respiration, completely gone… with my husband and my daughter in the waiting room, hearing the commotion, guessing it was something happening with me, but not knowing what it was…and yes, apparently, such situations are indeed like they are pictured in medical dramas – lights flashing, “Code Blue” blaring throughout the hospital, people yelling, and running, and slamming doors. Here I was lucky for a second time, to have a superb team on board, and they managed to eventually bring me back. It turned out a major artery was completely closed and my heart was pumping out exactly 1/3 of the blood it was supposed to, when healthy. The entire ER personnel was stunned I had been able to function and walk myself into the hospital in that condition. The artery was repaired and I was stabilized, but after multiple tests – there was still no obvious trigger for the disaster. The only reasons the doctors came up with were stress and/or a genetic problem nobody had known about all my life.
Much later, I learned how shockingly bad the statistics of surviving something like this were. In-hospital, approximately 8 out of 10 people cannot be resuscitated, and of those few, who are, even fewer actually get to leave the hospital. In other words, with a heart failure like mine, had I not been at the ER at that moment, there would have been absolutely no chance of survival. How is that for timing? A few days later, I was discharged, but monitored very closely by an entire team. I was taking many medications, literally fistfuls of pills, and I joked with the doctors that my heart had not killed me, but they certainly would, with the crazy amount of medicines. Here, the ABAA Benevolent Fund and my colleagues came through again, sending money and emotional support and reminding me why I have always loved the antiquarian book trade.
During her recovery from surgery, her doctors had commented that Dzhavgova displayed what they termed "inhuman pain tolerance." Dzhavgova recalls, “I recovered very quickly, or as the doctors put it — I looked like I had stepped out of a 5-star spa, instead of out of such a terrible experience.” That strength and resilience would be tested during her next act: making good on her promise to take up Taekwondo.
Six weeks later, when most people would be barely starting cardiac rehab, I was cleared to start Taekwondo. I never mentioned to the instructors exactly what had happened, I just told them I had been sick, then I buckled down and got on with training in the evenings. As I tell my friends, because all of us have to work and take care of our kids and our families during the day, when most regular people are relaxing, or already sleeping -- we are kicking at each other in class late into the night.
Four months later, in January 2023, I was invited on the Mach Competition Team. That night I went home and cried. In February, six months after my heart adventures, I had cardiograms and tests scheduled. The Chief Cardiologist of Kaiser called me with the results and said he practically never got to see such a thing -- my heart had completely recovered. It just does not happen, not often, not after a cardiac arrest like mine, but I had done it. The doctor told me that in his opinion, there were three reasons for that miracle -- the right combination of meds, my Taekwondo, and the fact that I was very strong and just refused to stay down.
In April, I won a Gold Medal at the California State Taekwondo Championships, which secured a spot for me at the Taekwondo National Championships later in the summer in Florida. When my instructors and I decided that I was, indeed, ready to go to Nationals, I set a precedent at the school by being the only color belt allowed to attend a grueling training camp, which in the past had been reserved only for Black Belts, three times younger than myself. All day, every day, for six days… I am not going to lie, there were moments, when I questioned my sanity and asked why I was doing this to myself… but I did it and I kept up with the youngsters.
In July 2023, I won a National Silver Medal in a very close competition, with the Gold Medal winner beating me by only two-tenths of a point. Eleven months after my heart stopped, I was a national medalist in Taekwondo, the only color belt from my school to compete. My husband and my daughter were with me and my team and the three of us extended the Florida competition trip into a glorious, one-week, beach vacation. I would have never done it without the support and encouragement of my family, my colleagues, the Mach instructors, my younger teammates, and my classmates from the adult class, some of the latter also on Team Mach and winners of multiple gold medals. So, here I am, with Kaiser asking me to sign papers of consent, giving them the right to present my case to the community and at medical conferences, because “we might never again see multiple cancers, a cardiac arrest, and a national medal in less than two years.”
When she applied for ABAA membership, Dzhavgova wrote that one of her reasons for pursuing ABAA membership was because being part of the association would mean that “in a moment of distress, apart from my family, I would have a shoulder to lean on, of colleagues and close friends.” She did not know how quickly those moments of distress would arrive, but was "overwhelmed" by her colleagues' support when it was needed.
(L) Zhenya Dzhavgova
National Silver Medal Winner, Zhenya Dzhavgova (Photo credit: Mach Martial Arts)