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- DATE: 16-05-2020
- PLACE: Milan
COUNTRY OF PROVENANCE
Italy
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Veronica and her pencil, cancer patient at the time of covid19
Veronica represents herself as a pencil that has broken, but that now colors again the world. The pencil broke when the diagnosis came again: the cancer had returned. Accepting it this for a second time was more difficult.
When a pencil breaks, pricks are created. Those parts that stung were her fears. She knew what she would go through with the therapy but wondered where she could find strength this time. Chemotherapy is long, for her 8 months, and it means going to the hospital every week … it’s tiring! Then the person begins to lose hair, eyelashes, eyebrows … and on a physical level no longer recognizes him or herself.
She asked a therapist for help because she realized that chemo was the only way forward and she wanted to change perspective, transform fear and anger into something else, something that would be useful to her. She does it with photography, one of her passions: if you don’t like how you see something in the lens, change the frame!
From splinters to a new tip
She wanted to turn the splinters of that broken pencil into a tip ready to color. She needed the care, the relationship with doctors and nurses, but also to trust her head, being present, and above all the heart, the affections, the most important relationships. So serenity returned and she was able to face therapy.
Veronica, of a very independent nature, has learned to lean on, to push away what was not positive. She established an atmosphere of closeness and sharing with doctors and trained to give and receive love.
The quarantined situation
This moment of quarantine that we are experiencing has generated concern: Veronica is still doing therapy, she must necessarily go to the hospital. Her first fear was “if I take the covid, I have to stop the therapy”. At this stage, trusting those who take care of you – doctors and nurses – is essential.
During this time, she went to the hospital twice, the nurses who welcomed her behind the masks and the gloves communicated her with human eyes, they reassured her. Other than that, isolation for her – she lives alone – was not terrible, she was already trained! During the previous therapy she had been almost six months without working, without being able to see friends or go to a restaurant.
Being with yourself 24 hours a day can be tiring, but Veronica learned new things, became passionate about leavened products, and began to appreciate the little things that are part of her new routine.
Beauty in everything
Veronica uses irony to react to even the most difficult situations. The irony helped her in the hospital to find that thread of hope and beauty that exists, even in an oncology department.
Beauty is everywhere, it is sufficient to change the point of view! It is nice when the sun is shining, but also when it rains … it is in the little things that do not pretend to be striking, of course you have to be more careful to grasp them, but then beauty explodes.
Even covid19, like an oncological disease, can be an opportunity for beauty, for those who know and want to take it.
She, like Cristina, is also part of the C6 Siloku association.
