“My body was not letting me do a lot of things, but my brain was still going.”

          -Ivanka Ska

She was already bedridden and recovering from cancer treatments when the pandemic hit.

But Ivanka Ska, an artist designer – and now inventor – used her time to create a new luxury product to organize purses. And she’s spent the pandemic finding an American factory to make them.

Ska refers to her cancer diagnosis in 2018 like this:

“I had a chance two years ago to slow down a little bit.”

In fact, Ska did not slow down.

She managed to get a prototype of her idea, find an American factory to make then and then get the product in a store.

Recovering from cancer.

In a pandemic.

How?

“You have to find your own light. There's got to be something that you like. Find that light and hold onto it,” Ska explained. “I knew that I have to get this product out no matter how. And that literally kept me going.”

Ska also credits her family and friends for her ability to fight cancer and continue to create. She was overcome with gratitude when discussing her friends and colleagues.

And she was especially thankful for her spouse.

“My husband, my best friend, but also a huge supporter of what I do, constantly kept me on track. He wouldn't let me cry from pain. He wouldn't let me think that this is going to be the end of the world because cancer was awful. He just kept that light on for me every single day of my life,” Ska said.

Since March, Virginia Johnson has been talking to people throughout the Tampa Bay area about how they are dealing with Life in The Time of Coronavirus.

They are stories of hope for our community, and you can check them out here.