HAS Gonzalo Calderon He was diagnosed with his first cancer just days before his eleventh birthday. Was a very advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma measuring 16 centimeters, stage 4band that, in addition, had generated metastases. They painted roughly. However, this man from Burgos is now 33 years old, he is a resident doctor at a health center in Palencia and, although he has suffered six cancers in total, he has a positive outlook on life that is enviable. “It is no use living in fear and we should not be afraid of cancer,” he says.
Today, being diagnosed with cancer is “a bitch” and Calderón admits it without palliatives. In an effort to transfer some of the lessons learned from this overwhelming process to those who have just been diagnosed with cancer, he wrote My guide to super living in oncology. He gives advice on How he himself overcame uncertainty, fatigue or tabooamong others, that accompany cancer treatment. And she draws a positive conclusion from her cancers: it was time to stop and see if she was living the life she wanted.
“If you see me, I’m in good shape and well enough to lead a normal life. But there are quite a few consequences,” Calderón says.I have less breathing capacity and I am like a log, I have no elasticity in my muscles. I have to work on it because it bothers me, I am very athletic. I have dedicated many hours to climbing and, despite this, I am not very good because I have a handicap important even if I don’t notice it.” Despite this, he feels grateful because there are no consequences preventing him from living his life.
The first recovery
This non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma with which it all started kept him away from school from the fifth to the first grade. After a month in the hospital in Burgos, he had to go to Barcelona to be treated at the Vall d’Hebron hospital where he received chemotherapy, radiotherapy and even a bone marrow transplant from his brother.To prevent transplant rejection, I was on immunosuppression for a few years. and, of course, I couldn’t get into a class with so many children. I took the exams at home, but I went back to school in the first year of high school,” he recalls.
Cancer gave him a few years of respite during which he decided to study medicine. Didn’t your childhood experience prevent you from wanting to return to the hospital? “When you go through a process like this as a child, Either you don’t like the hospital, or you decide to “imitate” the professionals who left their mark on you during those years. “I don’t know anyone who is neutral in that sense,” says the doctor. In his case, he admits that he did not have a great vocation for medicine, but he likes being able to help people and, at first, he thought that with so many years between hospitals, he entered the race with an advantage, although that was not the case.
Unfortunately, his second cancer appeared in 2017: peritoneal mesothelioma, a very unusual and very difficult to diagnose tumor. “I was operated on in Fuenlabrada, Madrid, because there are very few specialists. The peritoneum is the layer that covers the abdominal viscera and I had it full of tumors. It is easy to say, but the operation lasted more than ten hours, they “They opened me up from above. From below, they removed the tumors as if someone were peeling the core of an apple, they put everything back in place and gave me intraoperative chemotherapy,” Calderón says.
Difficult operations
He left the hospital after a long convalescence and, weighing 47 kilos, “he was a spirit,” he emphasizes. He then finished his studies and obtained his residency in Palencia, but the cancer reappeared three months later: it was the same peritoneal mesothelioma, but this time behind the liver, in a particularly complex area. After chemotherapy that failed to make the tumor disappear, he returned to the operating room. However, that day, when he arrived at the hospital parking lot, he found a group of about 60 people who had come from several regions of Spain to hug him.
“I didn’t expect it and at that moment I thought: ‘I don’t care if I die, I did everything right.’ Oddly enough, it was one of the happiest days of my life, simply because of the people who were there,” Calderón says. “The operation went well because I did not die, but it did not cure me. I had done my final year project (TFG) on this cancer and I knew that surgery was the only thing that would cure it. At that moment, I thought: all I have left.” However, this doctor was saved again after receiving immunotherapy that, surprisingly, shrank several of his tumors.
Shortly after, he suffered a bowel obstruction and had to undergo emergency surgery. During this operation, they discovered a cancer inside the colon measuring ten centimeters and, to remove it, they removed 17 centimeters of this canal. “It wasn’t like the previous ones, this one had been there for a few years,” he explains. He took advantage of his convalescence after this operation to have a small lump removed on his side, which he thought was a harmless cyst. It turned out to be a leiomyosarcoma which had to be removed.
No fear of cancer
“I broke down a bit when I discovered that it was quite aggressive. During the operation, they removed a lot of skin, but also muscle and scraped my ribs. Shortly after, I detected a similar spot on the skin and after removing it, the doctors also saw that it was bad,” says Calderón. The sixth and final tumor, another leiomyosarcoma, was discovered after the publication of the guide. “Apparently, they come out because of all the radiation therapy I had to receive with the first tumor. Now, the doctors when they operate on me are more conservative. Since they take so many pieces away every time I get one, I end up without a body!” he exclaims.
For Calderón, his social support network, his family and friends, as well as his positive thinking have been the keys to moving forward. “Most of the things that happen to us in life are neutral, it’s good to get used to seeing the good things in them. Put them in perspective when something bad happens. You don’t have to be afraid of cancer, if one day it comes, you will take care of it then“The treatments are much better than those available three years ago. Who knows if, when your turn comes, you will be able to be cured with a month of treatment,” Calderón reflects.
