Our Francesca Fiocchi’s interview with Adriana, suffering from breast cancer, aroused great interest on social media. After the interview was published, she came across many readers who are facing a similar struggle and challenge to hers. A small community of hope has been created. Her optimism has inspired anyone facing cancer, as she did, or any other disease. For this reason we decided to entrust her with a diary dedicated to all those who live the same experience as her. Her words are of joy and trust, despite everything, because Adriana is a peaceful and sweet warrior. And she will be very happy to receive messages or exchange opinions with those who have fallen ill, with those who have a friend or relative in difficulty, with those who, thank God, are healthy (illness, after all, is just a state of mind). At the bottom of this post you will find his email. «There are two ways to live,” he said in the interview. «One is to think that nothing is a miracle. The other is to think that everything is a miracle. It’s curious that we struggle all our lives to live in the first way and then understand, reading it backwards, that it should be lived in the second. Beyond good and evil.” Happy reading; and we wish all those who read it a wonderful happy ending.
by Adriana Tosca
It’s five in the morning, and I haven’t slept a wink. Despite everything, therapy has become part of my routine, an unmissable appointment that I face with the automaticity of someone who already knows how it will go. Yet, the night before each session I can’t sleep. But why? I repeat to myself that it is “therapy”, but I wonder what sense there is in calling it that, even if it helps to heal. Personally, I prefer to call it “poison”. It makes more sense. Maybe there are those who call her by a proper name, like Cassandra, or those who can’t even talk about it.
Eight o’clock. I’m sitting in a chair that nurses call “comfortable.” In truth, I feel it is more like an execution chair. The nurse assigned to me moves in a methodical, almost mechanical way. His coldness affects me more than I would like. No smile, no words of comfort. He doesn’t even meet my gaze, as if all this were just a job like any other. I wonder what she’s thinking about: maybe tonight’s dinner or that dress in the window that she hopes to wear one day, maybe when she’s lost those extra two kilos. And there I was, wondering: how is it possible that she is there thinking about such normal things, while I am here, full of fear?
As the poison (but also the medicine) makes its way into my body, I feel my heart beating faster. I close my eyes and, for a moment, try to imagine myself in his place. What would I cook tonight? No, wrong thinking. I won’t be able to eat anything, I already know that. Then I think of that dress in the window, of me in that light dress, like any other person. Then I realize that that too is a useless thought: I can’t afford a dress like that now. I reopen my eyes and find my fear, there, waiting for me.
I’m finally home, in my refuge. My doghouse, as I like to call it. I don’t want to think about tomorrow, what will happen. What would change? It would only give me more fear. But then I realize that I’m here, standing, lucid. What can I do? A smile escapes me. I decide to get to the stove and think: «Poison, Cassandra, or therapy… today I won». I start cooking something good, even if I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat it. But it doesn’t matter: I will cook it to give as a gift, and I know that, in this way, I will make someone smile.
To write to Adriana: adritosca@gmail.com
