Thursday the 29th of August, 2024, Thursday, market day in Sant Cugat, my city, ... I only remember that it was a long, intense day, with very happy moments, such as the short time I spent with my mother chatting about funny things, happy to meet after the summer. Then, the three doctors who, through an ultrasound machine, were looking at my swollen belly, were excessively, or rather, strangely, affectionate with me, perhaps because I was the only person in the emergency room, or because I was an interesting case for them, I don't know, but they were close to me. The three of them talked, looked at each other, looked at my belly, stroked my arm, but said nothing to me.

Finally, one of them broke the silence and told me, you have a strange fluid, the best thing to do is to take you to the hospital. The three men accompanied me to the ambulance, and said goodbye to me as if I were going on that long trip that you know separates you from your loved ones with the mystery of when you will see them again or whether you will see them again. Furthermore, now that I think about it, I did not buy a ticket: I got in the ambulance without resistance. Without imagining it, I undertook an unknown intense journey into my inner self.
For long hours I was in the hospital emergency corridor, still not understanding what could be happening to me, nor very well the reason why I was there, I thought that it was a strange liquid, so there would be a way to get it out. Then one of the three doctors who had accompanied me to hospital came to see me, to give me some encouragement. He looked at me, sighed and, almost as a confession, said: “You know, this could be a tumor”.
I do not know how, after these words, they took me to take a test, and there came out the picture of a “A REALLY MALIGNANT 18 cm TUMOR OF THE RIGHT OVARY”. The new doctor, with difficulty in holding my gaze, stammered: “Dr. Rodriguez from the emergency room will see you”.
I arrived at the appointment with Dr. Rodriguez leaning against the walls, my belly was heavy, because by then, the tumor with a very malignant aspect was dominating my whole body. He pinched me hard so that I would say “ouch”, and then my head was spinning, and then the world was spinning, and I didn't know where I was going or where I was.
I heard Dr. Jordi say: ovarian cancer, ..., and I didn't hear anything else, ..., I signed I don't know what, or how many papers, ..., and I went home with that belly; I had to wait for the day of the operation. I became a regular at the emergency room, I could already recognize whether the screams were coming from the psychiatric or the trauma rooms, at what time the food was served, and where they kept the arsenal of medicines. My body was screaming in pain; I did not want to scream, but the tumor kept pinching me, causing fever, discomfort, drunkenness, ..
I had heard about cancer metaphors, because as it is a serious disease, a close friend of death, it is often difficult to name it, and ways are invented to avoid saying cancer; I have heard the words battle, fight, journey, ..., and the sick person thus becomes a warrior or a brave person. Everyone can name me as they want, as long as it is affectionate, I accept it, but I dislike being called a warrior, because I only believe in pacifism and if there is one thing I claim is to learn to communicate without violence.

I called my little tumor Don Pascualito. I wanted to understand him, to integrate him into me, to accept him in order to live together since we both inhabited the same needy body. Don Pascualito's death was as close as mine, we both coexisted with that premise. My coexistence with Don Pascualito was curious, he squeezed my body, he wanted to go through all the intricacies and expand, and he moved me, I felt my body through the pain. Don Pascualito taught me to take care of my body and pamper it to see its beauty and health. It taught me to be aware of the fact that if my person is and does it is through that little body.

Even though during that period I had a need for sun contemplation and nature, my body couldn't lift a foot, an arm, or even my head, and my body lay there entangling nights with days and days with nights…, and existence extended without understanding its sense, because I could not express all my will.
Another trio of doctors took Don Pascualito out of my body, they opened me from top to bottom, 83 stitches. Thanks to the blood bank and the morphine I felt a joy that gave me a pleasant sensation of floating, it was a sublime state. The joy of feeling so well after having been a barren body was rising in me.
But after a few hours, I felt the dizziness of not being able to cope with my life, of seeing death, and scaring the nurses who took me faster than a rocket, and holding my hand in the elevator, one floor up: the ICU. They injected me with more and more morphine, but I was still in pain and pain and dizziness and the smell of death. I couldn't move my head for a week, my gaze limited to a plain wall with a socket. That was my world, an inert body, a thinking head questioning the meaning of life and overcome with grief.

First Don Pascualito, born from my own entrails, imposed on me a belly as if I was about 9 months pregnant, that belly hurt and had me without a soul. I gained several kilos, even though I even hated drinking water. After the operation, I became a bag of bones wrapped in skin and decorated with a scar that crossed my entire front torso with 83 staples which extended in 83 wrinkles. My thin arms, like two wrinkled sticks; my breasts remained in two little nuts; neither the navel nor the ass were visible. My legs… Thank God the lymphedema is gone! , although the left one is still hot and with drainage difficulties. Now they are going to inject me with cortisone and my body will swell, then the chemotherapy and I will become bald, ...
Cancer is a unique, intense experience that has revolutionized myself internally. It is allowing me to experience life from a position I did not have. I have gained full awareness of the fact that in this world I may have 6 minutes, or 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years or maybe even 60 years left. It is up to me to decide how I want to live through that time.
I have cancer, I am not cancer or a disease. I have a delicate body, I am not weak. I am in pain, I am not suffering. I am going through a painful experience that some of you have gone through and some others will never.
How do I live with it? With openness to life and its circumstances, acceptance, introspection, and connection. Cancer has allowed me to stop the routine of my life to observe myself living it, to feel my life and its meaning. It allows me intense introspection, getting to know what I identify with deeply. I feel it as an opportunity.
From the perspective of cancer, I have been able to see the value of my life for all those I love and I have felt that very strong bond, even though some have become distant because of the fear I have awakened in them. So, my cancer is also an opportunity for everyone around me or who crosses my path, allowing us to connect, communicate, and show each other our values. That's why cancer is loving; it's part of the game of life. And that's why I want to share with everybody my experience on how I have lived with cancer and how I have lived it, continuing with my introspection, closely connected to everyone and to life.