Erin Youngerberg learned in 2010 that she was facing a possible death sentence.
“I had a mole on my back that started to grow,’’ she told The Post. “Dermatologists removed it and said it was nothing. But they called back and said it was a form of melanoma.’’
And it was the worst possible type of the skin cancer — the kind that causes tumors to grow all over the body.
But she has new hope — thanks to a remarkable drug called Yervoy, developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center using millions of dollars donated by billionaire David Koch.
In May 2012, Youngerberg, 35, an engineer from Jersey City paid another visit to her doctors, who told her they had found a tumor in her intestines.
She went to Sloan Kettering, was prescribed Yervoy for a month and soon started feeling better.
“I thought, hey, this stuff must be working,’’ she said.
Scans found that her tumors had shrunk. Yervoy, she said, “had done its job.’’
She’s now taking other medications her doctors hope will get rid of her cancer for good.
Yervoy, she said, “was what got things moving in the right direction. I’m very hopeful that things will continue to move in the right direction.’’
Youngerberg, like other cancer patients, is appalled that leftist groups, including a nurses union, now want New York-Presbyterian Hospital to turn down a $100 million gift from Koch because of his conservative politics
“It’s not about his politics,’’ she said. “It’s that he’s willing to donate huge amounts of money to cancer research.”
Kara Morgan, 40, a New Orleans mom and IBM worker just started taking Yervoy a month ago and is hopeful she’ll be another success story.
“I’m an extremely progressive left-wing radical,’’ Morgan said.
“But dollars are dollars. I do disagree with a lot of things the Koch brothers do, but I can’t imagine turning the money down. It’s a good thing that he’s doing. I’m grateful for that.”
Chelsea Price, 26, a cancer patient from Virginia, said, “If Sloan Kettering hadn’t had the money to do this clinical trial, I don’t know where I would be today.’’
Koch has donated $61 million to Sloan Kettering since 1992.
Dr. Jim Allison, the scientist behind the creation of Yervoy, came to Sloan Kettering in 2004 after Koch offered to put up $10 million to fund his research.
“David’s money was extremely helpful in understanding how it worked,” he said.
New York-Presbyterian said the huge gift — the largest in its history — will be used for a new center on its Upper East Side campus that will be named for Koch.
A coalition of labor unions and leftist groups, including the New York State Nurses Association, SEIU Local 1199, the NAACP and the Working Families Party, have criticized Koch for his aggressive funding of conservative groups and asked the hospital to tell him “No thanks.’’
But doctors and other workers at New York-Presbyterian said the Koch money was more than welcome.
“Politics should be separated from the donation . . . I think it’s an amazing gift and will help patients,” said Dr. Rajveer Purohit, a urologist.
Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick and Bill Farrington