Few places can detect the warmth and vitality that is breathed in the Sala Rosa, the place that offers weekly in Adeje psychological and material support to people who fight against breast cancer.
Until this space, opened six years ago at the Center for Citizen Participation and Coexistence in Barrio Las Nieves, thanks to the efforts of Brigitte Gypen, president of the Canarian Foundation Carrera por la Vida, and the collaboration of the Adeje City Council, they arrive every Wednesday , between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., patients and relatives in search of information, but, above all, affection and distraction, in addition to coming to pick up special free bras for massectomized women. They also find in this space self-esteem workshops, talks with nutrition and coaching professionals. “Here we meet on Wednesdays to forget about the disease, because they talk about everything except cancer,” emphasizes Herminia Tacoronte, Hermi, coordinator of Carrera por la Vida activities, who is a few months away from receiving the final discharge after more nine year old keeping breast cancer at bay. Today he remembers as a key moment the day that changed why it was my turn to why. Hermi and Brigitte, who also knows first-hand what it means to fight the disease, work side by side to maintain a permanent outstretched hand to the patients who come to the Rosa Room and, especially, to those who enter for the first time “with a little scared ”, they say. In this work, both highlight the key role that volunteers play.
“Last Wednesday a girl arrived with her husband. The truth is that there was pure tenderness between them, although she did not utter a single word. I was terrified. I grabbed his hand, because I could tell he needed that strength. I told him my story, my experience, and suddenly he started talking. Her husband broke up at that time and told me: ‘You have managed to get my wife to tell her story “, details Hermi, who maintains that” God has given me this aspect [se señala su cabeza, sin pelo] to help them identify with something that I’ve been through ”.
Six days later, Hermi received a call from him that moved her: “I’m in the hospital, I’m not afraid, thank you for your words,” she said. “Those things move you and you realize that, almost without being aware, you become a little motor for those women who come lost, as I was in their day, and who do not know what awaits them on the way ”.
The example of the grateful patient, after tiptoeing into the Pink Room, is repeated frequently. “There is a girl who confessed to us that no one in her environment knew that she had breast cancer and even left her job saying that she was going on vacation. I commented to him that that was impossible and that you couldn’t cover the sun with your finger. He told us that he had to go to the hospital and that he was afraid, ”says Hermi.
Today, the patient already verbalizes it without any fear and looks face to face at her illness, which has taken a breast from her. “They haven’t given him chemotherapy or radiotherapy, they just [hace el gesto de entre comillas] He has lost a breast, but he admits that he is happy. When we gave him a prosthesis he started laughing and exclaimed, ‘Wow! I’m a woman again. ‘ Seeing the happiness of that girl, who was afraid to tell about her illness and today she faces it naturally and with a smile is priceless, ”says the Carrera por la Vida activities coordinator.
Brigitte Gypen does not forget how the idea of creating the Sala Rosa arose, unexpectedly: when she presented at a press conference the 10th edition of Carrera por la Vida together with the mayor of Adeje, Rodríguez Fraga. “It came from my soul to ask at that time for a space to hold meetings that could improve the quality of life of people with this disease,” he recalls. The councilor took the glove on the spot and publicly promised to give him a venue.
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