Is there anything worse than getting Hodgkin’s lymphoma? Of course: getting Hodgkin’s lymphoma and having to undergo treatment during a pandemic!
My name is Stefano, I was born in 1975, I’ve been a radio speaker for a lifetime. It is a job that, over time, teaches you to eliminate all kinds of problems from your mind when you put on headphones: those who listen to you cannot take on your anxieties, your fears, your problems.
I discovered that I had something wrong towards the end of summer 2019: as a good fitness enthusiast, after a period of “definition” (intense training and low-calorie diet to be able to go bully with the “six pack” on the beach) I noticed that I had a rather large swelling in the left groin area which I had not noticed because it was covered by abdominal fat. Furthermore, during the holidays in the mountains in early September I often felt pain in that area, especially after drinking alcohol, even a simple glass of wine. I asked my doctor to do an ultrasound: at the end of the exam, which lasted much longer than normal, the doctor, after a few usual questions, told me clearly: “In my opinion it’s a lymphoma”. After getting dressed, not having clear ideas, I asked: “But … lymphoma … is a tumor, right?”
You know when a pinball machine goes haywire, all the lights come on and the ball falls into the hole without you being able to do anything? My brain went out, like the pinball machine, while I continued to read the final part of the ultrasound result: “The picture found requires contrast CT and oncological counseling”. The word “oncology” made its entrance into my life at a time when I was not prepared, when I was physically well, I felt powerful, in which the last of the fears was that of having cancer. Until that moment.
I decided in agreement with my partner Laura not to say anything to anyone at least at the beginning. At the same time, I began training in the gym like an animal: I wanted to get to the decisive appointment with cancer in the best physical and psychological condition possible, I wanted to feel strong despite everything.
November 2019 was a strange, intense month, full of questions, fears and tension. After the PET scan which highlighted the presence of lymphoma, there was the surgical operation. The piece of lymph node they extracted shortly before Christmas gave the definitive answer: classical mixed-cell Hodgkin’s lymphoma, stage three.
2020 had just begun, I knew it would be very complicated… Grand opening Friday 17 January 2020: 6 cycles of chemotherapy with infusion every 10 days, plus any consolidation radiotherapy. They are routines and terminology that you learn day after day, even though I had searched the internet for everything there was about Hodgkin’s lymphoma: while the whole world strongly advises against going online, I have read everything there was to read, and I prepared for the worst case scenario. I wanted to be one hundred percent prepared. And fortunately it was!
By setting a balanced and slightly hypocaloric diet that did not burden my body and continuing to train in the gym, I significantly reduced the side effects of drugs: during the therapy period they felt a little nauseous in the days following the treatment, a some fatigue on the fourth day following the infusion (which actually increased towards the end), and the loss of eyebrows and hair in the last month.
The first good news came in mid-March: completely negative mid-therapy PET. It was working. In the meantime, the world was under attack from COVID-19: the whole country locked up at home, I was going to work … and to do chemotherapy!
It was at that time that I realized how much a cancer patient needs support during treatment at the hospital: I saw sad, bewildered faces, people who did not know where to go, what to do … The safety protocols required (Rightly ) that every patient had to go to the hospital alone, and for many this was an added stress. I learned from this experience that the brain is a fundamental ingredient in the fight against cancer: if you let yourself go, you put your whole life on hold, you indulge in drugs without fighting… Cancer notices it, and takes advantage of it. You have to fight, every day, every hour, every minute. Tirelessly.
Friday 12 June, 10.30 am: final PET, what I called from the beginning “the day of judgment”. After two PET scans, a CT scan with contrast, a laparoscopic operation, 16 blood samples, 12 chemotherapy infusions, 36 injections of growth factors, I was at the crossroads. The premises were excellent, but the fundamental rule is never to put the cart before the horse. “Orientation framework for complete metabolic response to the treatments performed”, music for my ears. Fifteen sessions of radiotherapy were missing to give a “bombardatina” to a lymph node that had not yet returned to its original volume, practically nonsense. No more infusions, no more nausea, no more tiredness. Absolute lust.
At the end of the 15 radiotherapy sessions, only the last visit with the four heroes who dealt with my “problem”, namely Dr. Marino, Dr. Del Fiore and Dr. Finotto and Vianello of the IOV of Padua, was missing. just to compliment each other, breathe a big sigh of relief and give us an appointment for the first follow-up.
And now? Big celebrations? Award vacation? Big drink to forget? Welcome back carefree?
Unfortunately none of this. No holidays due to Covid-19, no drinking (fitness people drink VERY moderately), no celebrations and not even a lot of lightheartedness. Just a dinner with my sweetheart. Are you wondering why?
Because it is true that when you finish such a path you feel like a hero and you would like to shout it to the world, but what many “survivors” do not tell you is that once it becomes part of your life, cancer never leaves you at all. You finally come back to life, but a pinch of fear is always part of your daily sensations, around every corner you seem to see hidden the “monster” that looks at you in secret, when the follow-up period approaches you begin to feel tense.
This is why I tell you: if a person close to you has had cancer and defeated it, remind him every day that he is a warrior, a winner, an example, who must live intensely every second of his life without worrying about anything else.
And maybe one day I whirling around will not see any hidden “shadow” spying on me from around the corner.
Stefano