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Pancreatic Cancer: Rasarias story

“I understood everything is important including my blood test: a walk, a coffee with a friend. I live everything to the fullest!”

Rosaria overcame a diagnosis of cancer, and despite her many difficulties, she still demonstrates an extraordinary positivity and desire to live.

It was 2001 when Rosaria began to feel severe itching all over her body.

She has no skin manifestations, but the discomfort is insistent and continuous. The GP tells her that it could be due to her anxiety and prescribes something to calm her down. The situation did not improve, and Rosaria decided to see a dermatologist; after a few days of antihistamines, she underwent blood, urine, and stool tests.

The values are not good, and a liver ultrasound reveals that the gallbladder has doubled in volume and the ampulla of Vater is occluded. She then decides to intervene to unblock the ampulla, proceed to take some tissue, and do a biopsy. The diagnosis is that Rosaria has a neoplasm and a pancreatic tumour, and a part of her organ must be surgically removed.

It is Professor Memeo who follows Rosaria on this path.

Still, above all, her husband and a doctor friend protect her from difficult news and hide the gravity of the situation from her until the last possible moment. “My husband always spoke directly to the doctors;

I knew nothing.

He was a wonderful man; he took charge of the situation and allowed me to face the intervention with a different attitude; only later did I discover I had cancer when they told me I would have to have chemotherapy.”

Pancreatic report was a precursor to Rosaria undergoing 10 chemo sessions; then, she underwent periodic checks. Today, she is well and has resumed her everyday life, even though she discovered herself to be diabetic, probably both due to a genetic propensity and because the pancreas is the organ that produces insulin, so after the operation, the tendency to develop diabetes increases.

Professor Moschetta follows her on this journey:

“he is a wonderful person; he gave me the strength to get back on my feet, to react, and he was and still is a very important psychological support for me”. In 2010, however, Rosaria lost the “great love of her life”, her husband, due to bone cancer.

Despite her difficulties, Rosaria is a woman of extraordinary strength and positivity.

Following the surgery and the illness, under his Christmas tree, there was always the envelope with his donation for AIRC: “What they do is very important, fundamental… I am a positive person, and I always have been, but the illness made me understand that everything is important: a walk and a coffee with a friend. I live everything to the fullest.

When I lost my husband, I welcomed everyone at the funeral with a smile.

I had the gift of knowing and loving him. This is what I have to think about, what I enjoyed; he is well now and is always with me anyway.”

Cosimo, a pancreatic tumour and time is running out. Useful ideas and good intentions for 2023

The diagnosis was on his 50th birthday in 2020.

Then, the treatments and the recurrence. «In six months from now, I might no longer be here. Thus, another world opens up. There is no room for fear.”

«I know I won’t win the war, but I will give the tumour a run for its money. I firmly intend to overcome as many battles as possible.” Thus ends the interview with Cosimo Caputo, who is 52 years old, with two teenage daughters he loves very much and a tumour from which he will never recover.

No one can know how long he has left to live.

This is the question everyone, patients and family members, ask themselves when faced with a cancer diagnosis. Still, he is determined to enjoy every day without feeling sorry for himself and, above all, without wasting time, which is precious, and he knows it better than most.

Isolating yourself is the worst thing.

Following Cosimo’s example on how to face life is one of the best resolutions for the year that has just begun. Seneca said it a few thousand years ago: “Live each day as if it were your last.” But how is it done? And how do you find the strength to smile and party, knowing you have very advanced cancer?

«You need much affection.

You have to send it and receive it. And cultivate the desire to live, to do things “normally” as long as you can, because you realise that even that (normality) is a privilege. And you must allow others who love you to live with you. When you know that you will no longer be there, that you will leave a void and will cause pain despite yourself, you carry a great load.

But it doesn’t take long to understand that isolating yourself is the worst thing you can do: you must carry that enormous burden alone.

Or share it only with your family, burdening them?

No, it’s not good. You react, open up to others, try to follow your usual daily life, and the burden becomes lighter.”

The discovery of the Pancreative tumour on his 50th birthday
He knows what he’s talking about and has practised his “good rules” daily for over two years.

Ever since on December 2, 2020, on his fiftieth birthday, he received the worst possible surprise: the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Just under 3 centimetres in diameter, at the limits of surgical resectability: “It’s an uphill journey, but we can do it”, the specialists at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan to whom he turned told him.

And so the process began:

First, all the reports to properly identify the disease, including those genetic tests, are very important today because, in the presence of certain mutations, they allow the use of particularly effective new drugs (unfortunately, however, in his case, the result was negative).

Then, from January 2021, four months of chemotherapy, the surgery in June and another two months of chemo, which started on August 15th, «very heavy and very painful – says Cosimo -. I never lost my willpower; nine days after the operation, I was at home.

From the beginning:

I armed myself with strength, courage, and lots of physical activity, all I could, which helped eliminate the side effects and was good for my mood. But that chemo was very hard; it took all my determination. Even the one I didn’t know I had.”