2023-12-05 11:47:00
When faced with a major illness, such as the diagnosis of advanced breast cancer, one is initially overwhelmed by negativity, because “we are always used to giving too much weight to negative things while minimizing the positive things. If we do the opposite, maybe that’s a moment where we start to live.” Thus Catia, protagonist of a new episode of the Vodcast ‘It’s time for life’, an initiative promoted by Novartis together with Salute Donna Onlus and produced by OnePodcast. The woman received her first diagnosis in 2011 and three years ago, when everything seemed to be over, the recurrence with metastasis arrived. With her testimony, Catia tells how to manage a condition which, also thanks to therapeutic progress, puts one’s life back at the centre, for its realization both in the present and in planning, as reported in an article in ‘Allies for Health’ (www .alleatiperlasalute.it) the medical-scientific information portal created by Novartis.
In the case, for example, of hair loss, Catia refuses the wig, “I preferred to hide it in some other way or even experience what it meant to have a bare head. When you shave you see that you have a perfect head. Finding a strength also from a weak point is always a beautiful thing, because it allows you to put the negative things aside a little.” Strengthened by this choice, Catia finds the courage not to give up her passion, physical activity, and turns to other women who have received similar diagnoses, inviting them not to worry about “what others think of them”, because “they are the ones who have to think about themselves, so that others perceive what they really are”. And this even when the disease, after a period of respite, returns with a recurrence.
In fact, an important turning point for Catia concerns her passion for physical activity: before her illness she could easily do a half marathon. You then look for an alternative that satisfies your movement needs. She finds it in spinning which, between music and pedalling, conquers her. “I fell in love with a wonderful activity” – the woman says, from a simple student she becomes an instructor and therefore “you really have to study: study the music, study the tempos, study the body, study the workouts. I got really passionate about it, but above all it’s a moment when you stop thinking.” In this activity – we read on alliesperlasalute.it – the way of conceiving time itself changes, which ceases to be an enemy and becomes suspended time, which allows one to distance oneself from one’s own body, from illness.
In this context it is important that the doctor is close to the person he is treating, not only defining the most appropriate treatments, but also evaluating the psychological and emotional side. “What I try to do together with the patients – explains Manuelita Mazza, breast oncologist at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan – is to contain, reduce anxiety and live in the now trying to lose control, not to control always everything that can happen later, losing the current time, the now”.
Physical activity, indispensable for Catia, is therefore a way to put aside pain, illness and worries: a sick body becomes an active body capable of even teaching others and finding the strength not to let itself be overwhelmed even by relapse. Of course, there are new therapies today offering more time and the possibility of enjoying a good quality of life. But Catia forces the disease to step aside and continues to carry forward what she has built, not only for herself but also for her students, who need that outlet after a tiring day of work. Through spinning and her suspended time, she also manages to face the death of her mother, to better manage the pain of the loss. With her story, Catia limits the illness and carves out her full and rewarding life time.
The complete article is available on www.alleatiperlasalute.it/la-voce-del-paziente/e-tempo-di-vita-vivere-loggi-e-progettare-il-futuro-oltre-la-malattia
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