One second of life (or two)
Good morning, doctor. What cases do we have for today?
At the intersection between psychiatry and oncology, there is a branch of clinical practice known as psycho-oncology. It is staffed by medical, psychological, and nursing health professionals, and many others. You may have had the opportunity to have met or been treated by one of them because cancer and mental health go hand in hand.
Not long ago, I relived some of the most beautiful experiences I have had interacting with professionals in the field. However, I'll save it for a few lines below, to describe what's left of it all. Perhaps it's bold, but I'll start with something personal. She died one day in March 2017. She was a woman, born in Palma de Mallorca, daughter of a Catalan mother and a Canarian father.
— Look… do you see the mass in Sigma? There are widespread lesions in the lung, liver and peritoneum. The prognosis is serious —the internist tells me, pointing at the computer image. Curiously, we knew each other by sight from the Clínic Hospital, when I was a stretcher-bearer for some summers and winters while I was studying for my degree.
I met my parents and, hugging them, we cried for ten minutes. That is where a story begins, where mental health and oncology go hand in hand. A story that still endures today. You may now wonder what remains of all that. The answer is very simple: a deep grip on life, in all its dimensions.
I’m sorry for the absence, but the fact is that my aunt has been admitted to Sant Pau’s Hospital. Ironically, she was a psychologist for 40 years there, specializing in gynecology and oncology. For the last three weeks, she has been suffering from confusion and delirium, with psychotic symptoms. The diagnosis is not clear, nor is it clear whether it is reversible or not.
One of the delusions or fantasies that my 84-year-old aunt has is that she has been called to become the city mayor. Another, from a couple of days ago, is that she is on an internship at the hospital. As she explains it to me, she steers at me with crystal-clear eyes, with a girlish face. I try to talk to her calmly so that she doesn't get aggressive because my aunt is quite bad-tempered when she wants to be.
It is 43 years of an extraordinary relationship. She was my single aunt, without kids. She was the cool aunt who brought me books and painting kits, took me to the theater and the cinema and to eat in Barcelona, and even to London, when I was 14 years old, where she had spent more than two years during her youth.
From there was born our love for the city, which I have not visited for a long time. Despite this, I think of Piccadilly, the Trocadero, Carnaby St. and the Tower of London all the time, because any day now I'll take a bath in the Thames to get myself in shape, like the one I took yesterday at the beach in Barcelona, which by the way was literally freezing. I lasted for just one second with my whole body under the water.
On the way out, I pass by the PRBB and meet a former collaborator. We greet each other warmly, and after a few minutes of conversation, I head for home. It's time to eat and do something, there's a deadline nearby.
In the afternoon the children arrive, and after the evening dance, I sleep a few hours, just to get up in the morning and write these lines. Let's get down to work, we have to keep on moving.
