Cristina Gomez, 32, is a yoga and pilates instructor from Valencia who has had breast cancer. Some of the most complicated moments of his illness have been marked by the pandemic, which has affected his treatment in the form of delays. As he relates, “the radiotherapy was my turn in April and it lasted until July.”
It all started when in August 2019 they gave him the diagnosis. “When they tell you that you have cancer, it is not that everything goes to the background, but that it disappears directly and you begin to value what is important,” he explains. Then his odyssey began. First came the egg reserve and then went through six months of chemotherapy, although the last session they had to stop because he did not feel his fingers. Throughout this process he counted on the support from your partner, “Who made a brutal effort.”
Then, in March 2020, came the left breast massectomy. According to Cristina, “I went through a rather complicated surgery, my life was in danger, and what I most wanted after leaving alive was to have visitors.” But it could not be because that same week was when the state of alarm was decreed and they could not approach to see it. A month and a half after the intervention, he had to start radiotherapy, but since the confinement was in force “it couldn’t be” and he had to wait until July. “It was dangerous to let go longer,” he says.
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The pandemic has also generated fears when going to medical appointments due to the risk that getting coronavirus would pose to someone in their circumstances. Especially in the course of that third wave, in which she says she feels a bit isolated. Haunt him doubts and fears. Cristina Gómez admits that she would like to be able to go to her nurse or her oncologist “with the peace of mind that nothing is going to happen to me, that my health is not in danger.”
The disease and the treatment have left their mark. She is not the same physically as before, “it has limited me a lot.” You still don’t notice your fingers Nor can she think of returning to her job as an instructor.
Fortunately, he has had the support of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) of Valencia, providing her with a psychologist with whom she is very happy. He has also “given me company” during confinement, through workshops and talks. This support has made her feel that she was not alone in this tough process marked by the pandemic and “that they have not forgotten me.”
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