“I carry with me the devastating fear of those days.” Tiziana Panella, presenter of Tagadà, a program broadcast every day on La7, recalled the moments of terror she experienced when her partner, Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, ended up in a coma last December following an illness. After days in intensive care, the political scientist managed to survive the delicate operation he underwent for the dissection of the aorta. In an interview with Corriere the journalist recalled the difficult days in which her partner was in a coma. «I breathed a sigh of relief when he shook my hand and I realized that he heard me. But I only really breathed when he came out of intensive care.” The professor is better now, miraculously alive. It was December 27th when the process began.
INSIGHTS
Tiziana Panella returns to Tagadà: «Me next to my life partner in a very difficult battle»
«Vittorio and I were supposed to leave the next day, go to the heat for the holidays. He was in Cortina for the presentation of his book. And he called me that he was sick. Then on the morning of the 28th the news of the air ambulance transport to Treviso for the operation. I ran and when I arrived from Rome, he was in the operating room.” This is how the journalist and TV presenter remembered those moments of fear, which are difficult to forget. She found herself spending day and night in intensive care, next to her partner: with her there was his ex-wife and his daughters. «Before I had no relationship with them, but knowing and loving him made us become a united family. Each with his pain.” she revealed. «I wrote to him every evening, a short diary of the day, via WhatsApp. I still carry the devastating fear with me, at night I check that he is breathing well.”
The meeting with Parsi
With Parsi they met in television: «Galeotta was the war in Ukraine, two years ago. He was my guest very often and we began to feel… then slowly, love commuters: him in Milan, me in Rome. He gave me the ability to be happy. Now at night I check that he is breathing well.” Journalist for La7, in his past there is a passion for dance, which he later had to give up due to physical reasons: «I’m too tall. I have a Mediterranean body structure which has never helped. But being stubborn, I loved ballet so much that I worked on my body to force it to be compatible. Dance is rigorous in everything: times, clothing, hair. If you weren’t perfect they’d throw you out. It was the place where I felt best and I liked asking my body for a sacrifice. A goal towards perfection. A self-discipline that I had to stop at 21 because I had subjected my body to incredible stress. I had to choose and stop.”
The worst days
The painful experience of her partner’s illness began on December 27th. Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, professor and politician, 62 years old, fell ill while speaking on stage in Cortina. Having undergone heart surgery, he ended up in intensive care. In mid-January he himself let it be known that he was better. Subsequently he continued with rehabilitation. And summarizing the phases of his illness, he declared that he considers himself a survivor and that he is alive “thanks to Tiziana’s face”. «I heard three blows on my diaphragm, as if I were holding my breath. As a diver you know that when you hear them you have to resurface, it’s the last warning. I understood that something was serious. Once the conference was over, I asked for a doctor to be called. The ambulance has arrived.” «I remember the whole period in the coma – said Parsi -. A muddy, black river that was under my feet, like Ulysses and Achilles. I think it was Hades. The river where dead souls are. I saw no light, no hope other than fighting to live. Maybe when you die the feeling is that of a hug. We experience death as frightening, I have never had much sympathy for it, I have no expectations about what will come next. But the thing that surprised me was that I wasn’t afraid. My thoughts went to Tiziana and her daughters. «I saw her face, I wanted to see it again. I spoke to my mother and father, who are no longer here: “Give me a hand, this is not the time to join you”. I opened my eyes. And I saw Tiziana who was there with me.”
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