There was expectation, there was time that passed with vague desires and a single goal. There was a COVID-19 that was only valid for me. There was limited freedom, strangled will. Choked by the difficulties that from there in a short time became bigger and bigger. There was the fatigue, the fatigue of an old, pale, asthenic and thin body, but at the same time swollen and red. There was a high forehead, no locks to fill it. There was a skin so gray and so wrinkled … And the eyes so strange: always large but yellowed, the green so devoid of vitality, the contours poorly defined by the thin lashes.
I see it now, I can see it well from the photographs. But then I didn’t realize it. I didn’t care about my outward appearance. In the mirror I saw myself, I tried to pass over that aspect so changed in the space of a few weeks.
My goal was to continue a normal life as much as possible, continuing with my work and my interests.
It was 2015, I was 25. Career physiotherapist, love for sport and the mountains, with the energy of being able to sleep two hours a night and then break the world. With the diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a series of months began for me that I will never forget. Six rounds of chemotherapy that lasted more than six months. I tried to continue my work as long as I could, then slowly my body asked me to let go. At the time I also followed a football team during training: I rested and slept all day to have the strength in the evening to treat the boys for a couple of hours. It was essential for me to be able to do something, albeit little. I felt bad because I saw that my colleagues, friends and the world around me went on, while I was forced by a higher force to remain in my small. In any case, I thought myself very lucky. My sister, Alisea, my parents, uncles, my boyfriend and some friends to whom I owe an immensity of love have always been close to me, always. And then there were Livia and Chiara, two big square heads (or “square toughs”?). There and then I did not realize it, I was incorporated in an angular bubble, but it was made soft and protected by those around me. Over time I really realized it: in difficult moments it is essential to let yourself go to the people we love. But in those months I learned a lot, being alone. In the moments when my body spoke, my head and my heart responded: there was so much confusion, sadness, there were tears, even of joy, there were conflicting emotions. And there was the strength.
There was something strong that I felt inside me, a fiery presence in my chest. I call it “strength” but I felt it almost materially: we were talking together and moving forward, a combative and, in the end, winning partner. I have not heard from it again in the following years. But it was the knowledge that I should have done it alone. Only I could win. Me with my strength. And so it was. I healed. The period after the recovery was very hard: clinically my body was fine, subjectively I was in pieces. We had to start all over again: the recovery of my body, the work, the hair. And my friends weren’t there to roll out the red carpet anymore. But slowly things fell into place and I have been back for some time now in my full potential. I’m fine. I work a lot. I’m happy. I’m growing up.
The mountain made me reborn. A trip to Nepal in 2017 and then my biggest victory on August 15th 2018: the summit of Monviso, on which I thanked God for the beauty of my life.
Martina