Acceptance

Italian

In all my memories of the illness, the worst personal violation was not about the therapies and their collateral effects, though horrible, and which in some cases remain now, four years later.

I was then in one of the moments of “super work”, with sleepless nights, non existent lunches, and with eyes which begged for pity after too many hours in front of the computer.
In the middle of it all, my immune system went into “tilt”.

With no advance warning, I found myself is a strange unknown place, full of white sheets, nurses wearing greenish face masks, exams, blood tests... endless silences in the shadows of lowered window shades and the always annoying neon lights.

Before then, I'd rarely seen a hospital from the inside. I'd visited someone from time to time, but only for half an hour. This time was different. The sick person in the bed was me. The gazes of the doctors had a different expression than what I'd noticed before. Their look vacillated between professional detachment and human contact.

I felt that I was disturbing them... that I was taking the place of someone who really had a serious problem.
I had no idea what was wrong, and could not have imagined it at all.
My thoughts were about work, and the thousands of things still to accomplish.
How would I get to the weekend if I could not move from there?

The diagnosis felt like a lethal blow: leukemia.

I knew nothing about the illness. I knew nothing about the hospital. I knew nothing at all.
Yet, there I was, with a fever which was elevated to the point where both my head and my eyes became foggy.
I continued to think about when I could return to the office and take care of my own things…
That thought was a last grasp of normality in the midst of a whirlpool of bad news dragging me downward.

Having to let go of that grasp was the moment of my worst violation.
I realized that this was not going to be brief, that instead it was destined to be long and painful.
That work had to wait. That my life had to wait.
That even my existence was no longer a sure thing.

From healthy to seriously ill.
From living to surviving.

How I struggled to accept that new condition.

The awareness that there was another world, beyond what I had known.
It was made of pain, small steps, hope, therapies and prayers.
In this world, the time passes slowly and there are long hours to simply think.

Despite it all, the mind remains lucid in this world. After bolting away like a wild horse, the mind calms and convinces you that this is, after all, a new challenge, a difficult test, and a large obstacle to overcome.
The difficult phase will be long, and you will want to cry. But, you can cry while walking and while moving forward.

Affronting a monster, especially an unexpected one, is never easy.
Yet, from the moment in which you change your visual you enter into the right mentality.
From that moment, you can consider yourself ready for the fight.

And to win.

The fourth year

Italian

March 17 of four years ago marked the lowest point of my descending curve...
Eaten away by the leukemia, crushed by the weight of the chemotherapy and flattened by a cycle of radiotherapy.

I was isolated in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of the hospital, sunk deep into the bed with three electro-mechanical pumps continuously administering fluids via a vein catheter inserted into my chest.

Four years ago today, I had just finished (once again!) losing all my hair, and at a weight of 55 kg I had never been so thin.

I knew that a few hours earlier my brother, judged a compatible marrow donor, had been subjected to a painful (and generous) withdrawal of marrow blood from the bone of his iliac crest.

So, I was waiting for the arrival in my room, at any moment, of the life-saving serum to substitute my own bone marrow, which had been devastated by the therapies.

The afternoon was calm and despite the closed window, I could feel the warmth of the sun. It would soon be June and finally, unless there were surprises, I would be able to leave the hospital and go home.

A face appeared on the other side of the glass door; two blue eyes scrutinized me for a long instant. Everyone in that department wore hygienic masks, but I was accustomed to recognize them by observing their bodies and their movements.

The nurse with the sky in his eyes was Matteo. He cautiously opened the door and entered, holding a dark red bundle in the fold of his elbow, the way newborn babies are carried.

He walked over to me, controlling every detail on the label of the bone marrow blood bag, and asked for confirmation of my personal information.

Matteo then hung the bag on the pole for infusions, connected it and in the instant before beginning the delicate process told me to have positive, hopeful thoughts.

My mind raced... the visions of the bathroom at home after I had fainted, the entry into the oncology emergency room, the dramatic moment when I found out about my leukemia, the injections of chemotherapy which beat me down, the slow recovery, with a daily count of white blood cells, the smile of the doctor who told me about the verified compatibility of my brother as a bone marrow donor, the wonderful people I have met and to whom I want to demonstrate that their faith and esteem was totally reciprocated...

The transfusion commenced under the watchful eye of Matteo, who regulated the velocity of the flow. Then, when everything had been completed and verified, Matteo left me alone.

The rhythm of those red drops falling from the bag into the tube leading to my body nearly hypnotized me. One drop. Two drops... one after another.

My gaze drifted to the sky beyond the window glass...

This is the same sky I see today, four years later, with the same firm conviction that I can overcome the latest test. Today as then.

During this time many things have changed, including my hips, which, because of the therapies, crumbled. After innumerable attempts to recover, they have just been replaced with pieces of titanium and ceramic.

However, the will with which I remain tenaciously attached to life has not changed. Births are celebrated with birthdays, and my re-birth, after the bone marrow transplant on May 17, 2011, is celebrated today.

Today, I share the joys of this meaningful day with... my brother to whom I will be eternally grateful for his gesture and generosity, my wife who has always stood at my side, my entire family, the doctors and nurses I have had the privilege of encountering, special friends who pick me up when I fall and those who follow me affectionately.

There is also a thought for the friends I have lost, and from whom I received a formidable lesson in dignity, and to all those who are still fighting against the disease.

Let's raise the glass and toast to life, so ephemeral and so very beautiful!