November 24

Italian

I  could barely stand on my feet. My wife was next to me, talking to the nurse at the reception desk of the Emergency Room.
He took a piece of paper and began to write the necessary information: first name, surname, birth date and year....

After the paperwork, I was assigned  a “green code” for  low degree of emergency, and I was told to enter the ward. They placed me on a bed and before leaving me alone, pulled a curtain around the area.

The wait seemed to be endless. I listened to the voices around me, signaling a continuous passage. There weren't many voices, so I was able to follow some of their conversations, talking about their work shifts for New Years Eve and day. It was November 24, and soon it would be Christmas.

Slowly my eyes closed and I began to sleep.

Somebody shook my shoulders to awaken me; the ceiling lights seemed blinding.

“We need to do a chest X-Ray” announced a nurse with a slight southern accent. That was the voice which had complained about receiving the worst shift for the holidays.

“I don't know if I can stand up” was my reply.
“Look, I'll get you a wheel chair” answered the nurse, pulling an old chair with plastic seat coverings next to the bed.
He helped me to climb into the chair and then began pushing it forward with a rapid pace.

We passed through empty corridors until reaching the Radiology ward. The nurse put me on one side of the hallway, in front of a closed door, and told me to wait, waving as he departed.

In that deserted corridor the only sound was the vague buzz of the neon lights. Straight lines on the pavement drew my sight far down the hall, to the most distant points. And against the walls, half way up, my eyes met the guard rails.

I wasn't exactly tired, but was strangely short of breath, panting.
Always. Short. Of breath. Shorter…

I tried to raise my eyes to the ceiling because it seemed that the light itself was weakening.
A dark blanket descended, while a myriad of brilliant stars began to dance in my eyes.

Right away I knew that I was fainting.

My seated position was not the best to avoid fainting; holding my head low was very important. Lay down, I told myself, even better with raised legs. I was afraid of falling on the floor, afraid of hitting my head or breaking a bone.

I lifted my feet and placed the heals on the guard rails.
Seated in the chair, at a lower level than the rails, my legs were effectively positioned higher than my body and I hoped that it was enough. Then I searched for ways to place my head lower, leaning backwards  along with my body.

With one hand I tried to pull the brake of the wheelchair, which was tending to slide backwards.  This way,  I tightly held the metal spokes of the wheels  and squeezed my hands shut to block the chair.  I remained like this,  motionless, for long minutes, with my teeth clenched from the effort.

Slowly, the obscure veil of darkness lifted, and clear images appeared in front of me.  There was the face of a doctor who had opened the door, staring with a surprised expression because of my odd position.  He said “Come on,  you can enter now. It's your turn.”

There have never been truer words.
It certainly was my turn.

The X-Ray showed a large inflammation on my left lung. I had a serious case of pneumonia.

A doctor tried to draw blood from an artery in my arm; it was painful as she made various maneuvers with her needle to locate the artery.
Since that day, the maneuver of digging inside me to withdraw something has been repeated… and repeated… just in different forms.

The results of that test were much worse than pneumonia.
My immune system was completely out of control.
Yes, I had a serious infection  in my lungs; above all, though, I had leukemia!

They said to my wife: “The situation is desperate and we don't know if he'll make it.”

Like the flight of an eagle... here's what has happened since then.

The pneumonia was cured, thanks to antibiotics and long days of “lung gymnastics” with a hateful breathing machine.
Then I passed to the most frightening illness.
First, there were cycles of chemotherapy, to prepare me for a bone marrow transplant, and a few days before the transplant I affronted radiotherapy.

My brother, with a magnificent gesture, saved my life with his bone marrow donation.

My illness, to my great good fortune, has not reappeared.

However, something happened. These therapies always have collateral effects, and in my case they provoked two Osteonecroses which literally grated the head of the femur in both my hips.

Two years after the transplant I began to walk with crutches.
The orthopedic doctors told me immediately that there was no alternative: I needed to  have a double hip replacement.

I would not give up and tried everything humanly possible: acupuncture, hyperbaric chamber, magnetic therapy, physiotherapy, manipulation, osteopathy…
After a year and a half there was some improvement, but not enough.

I've prepared myself to have the operation, which will take place in the days surrounding November 24, that fateful anniversary, four years later.
Still another time,  they are going to dig inside me to remove something which no longer functions.

Yes, I know that I don't have the right to demand that my experience as a patient finishes with this, or that I'll be guaranteed serenity for the rest of my life.

But I can no longer tolerate the idea of casually affronting new tests, in the name of the fact that I was strong once and overcame the worst.

If it can't be avoided, I will do it. Because it needs to be done.

–
At the end of a tunnel he feared he would never leave, the voyager headed down the open road.
Nature, which plummeted him with wind and rain, seemed now to be mild and beautiful.