My story with an antipathic tenant: the lymphoma
It all started at the end of summer 2017, at the height of my 27 years, a love affair in the midst of choos
ing where to live, a new job full of expectations and a cough that hasn’t passed since June. Yes, all the fault of “a cough”, yet no one could understand where it came from. Let’s go on vacation then, let’s go to the sea. It will pass, we said, nothing to worry about right? And instead the day before leaving for the return home a “tennis ball” appears between my neck and collarbone, a beautiful ripe orange. And off the rush to the hospital, what will it be? “But no, I’m fine, I can’t be sick right now!” “It will be nothing for sure!”.
But the reality was not of my opinion and the oncologist’s words are very clear to me: “Hodgkin’s lymphoma”. How unpleasant this Hodgkin is! First it decides to drive the cells of my lymphatic system crazy, then it decides to create a mass in my mediastinum and, after taking up residence in my ribcage, it decides to grow into a pineapple that collapses a lung (This is why cough I believe it, I was breathing with only one lung and a deviated trachea!).
My battle with the Bastard begins – Mr. Hodgkin in my chest – let’s go! They arm me with 6 cycles of chemo, two ABVD infusions per month for the next 6 months, a month and a half of radiotherapy with a mouthpiece for forced breathing (no fins, gun and goggles unfortunately, even if, ironically, two beautiful prints of the coral reef animated the ceiling of the Radiotherapy department) that is CPAP to avoid “frying” my heart. Dead in the field? Someone: the hair, the physical shape, the ability to stay awake after 9 pm, the thyroid and with it the platoon of memory skills and to eat anything and not get fat!
A year and a half later the most beautiful words I have ever heard (along with “I love you” from my boyfriend and “I am proud of you” from my parents): REMISSION. What a beautiful word! How colorful, melodic, a balm for my ears …
The colors helped me to move forward, battle after battle, therapy after therapy, fatigue accumulated with fatigue, I have always tried to fill my soul with colors. They helped me find meaning in what I was doing, a strength to go on and try at the end of the day not to overwhelm myself under the weight of the prevailing question: will I make it?
Yes. I did it!
Anna Francesca