I will never stop thanking you

I will never stop thanking you

I thought my ordeal was over. When I was trying to live with my new reality, pain in the left base of my tongue and the consequent histological test of the painful part led to the diagnosis of a new squamous carcinoma. At this point, I received a joint medical assessment by the primary surgeon, the oncologist, the radiotherapist and the psychologist, who advised me not to venture into further surgical or radiotherapy treatments because the position of the carcinoma, clinging to the carotid artery, and the damage caused by the previous surgery and the radiation applied did not allow an acceptable success rate to be achieved. The oncologist, in confidence and separately, wanted to know what my hobbies were, urging me to practise them as intensely and as pleasantly as I could, making me understand that I had to enjoy as much as I could the time I had left to live. It is here that I reconnect to the beginning of my letter,; when everything becomes gloomy, thoughts turn to the past to assess whether one’s passage has left a tangible mark mainly in the family. A click on my smartphone allowed me to learn that in Pavia a centre had finished experimenting with a machine capable of concentrating proton rays in extremely small spaces, thus being able to hit the tumour with the utmost precision, keeping the surrounding organs safe. Blessing all those who - by using their knowledge and conscience - had made this instrument, I asked and obtained in a very short time to be visited by Dr Valvo and her team to find out if they could intervene in a decisive way in the area where I had been denied this possibility due to the technological shortage of the equipment available at the €œRegina Elena € hospital. With great pleasure I had a positive response, and I can say that I spent - from August 5 to September 5, 2014 - the best holidays of my 66 years of life, receiving 25 hadrontherapy treatments. I have to thank the professionalism, expertise and morality of all the members of the CNAO, no one excluded; I can say that I have been en famille, but what is most important, and something of which the staff must be proud, is the fact of giving people back their lives. It’s been several months since the end of the treatment, I can only say that I am reappropriating life, rediscovering and revaluing even the simplest things. I am getting better and better, day after day. I WILL NEVER STOP THANKING YOU. Kind regards, Salvatore Abbaleo