2020: the year that changed my life forever, part 10: the final truth

 Dear readers,

here is yet one last post about my experience where I would like to express my final opinion about what really happened to me. In the last two years I've been thinking a lot about the causes and development of my condition and I have gathered quite a lot of information and ideas that I would like to present now in this final post.

Let's start from the very beginning: I think it all started several years ago when I started developing feelings of bitterness and disappointment over the way things were going at work. I loved - and I still love - teaching there, but collaboration with colleagues is almost impossible and at the time I started being very disappointed with the way I was treated. I must say, though, that these feelings were most of the time hidden in my subconscious and came to the surface only in specific circumstances. In reality, these feelings grew and lay hidden in my mind for a long time until just before COVID. Then in the two years before the pandemic, they intensified and started creating a few physical problems. I had no idea of all this going on at the time and even when it reached a peak in 2019, I did not think much about it. The COVID pandemic was the final trigger.

Another event that caused another shock in my life and may have played a part in causing my illness was what happened to me in Munich on 22nd July 2016. You can read about that in another post on this blog.

Last but not least, another shock I experienced in 2013 was the death of a distant cousin that I did not even know but due to particular circumstances, I was really moved by it and it has had long term effects on my person. I've also published another blog post about that, too. 

To be honest, I never really had any problems and I never noticed any connection between these events and some physical issues that I had in the two years before the COVID pandemic. Even when I started having the first problems it never dawned on me that they could have been caused by the bitterness and disappointment at work and other life events.

Let's go step by step: the first thing I remember having was what I now know as acid reflux. I had started to eat more bread, especially at the weekend, often too much of it. I was actually conscious of the fact that that was not so healthy and recognized the symptoms, but for whatever reason I did not manage to change my eating habits. 

Another problem was the infection that I had in the gum below my wisdom tooth down to my throat. It caused occasional pain and a dry throat. At first, I did not realize the two symptoms were connected and I went both to the doctor and to the dentist. I took some antibiotics for my throat and the dentist removed both my wisdom teeth and the infection disappeared.

Then I had some problems with my right ear and went to a specialist, who removed some ear wax and the discomfort disappeared. 

At a certain point, I started having more problems with my stomach in March 2020, but if you have read my previous posts, you know all about it. After some time, I realized that the cause of all my previous symptoms was the same that was causing problems now: gastric acid.

Fortunately, all signs and symptoms have completely disappeared. In the last twelve months I have tested different products and eaten a little bit of everything and I am happy to say that I do not have any kind of symptoms or problems anymore.  

As for my psychological well-being, I have never been better. However, it is important to be able to identify and prevent illnesses like the one I had. In the next years, I am going to look for possibilities to help others who are now in the situation I was in at the time or feel that something is wrong and want to do something to prevent it.

Thank you.  

   

    

The cousin I never knew

Dear readers, 
here is a true story, an experience I had a few years ago. 

It was on the morning train to university that I got to know them. They were all from Matelica and, like me, they all studied at the university of Macerata. We became friends and two of them have become long-term ones. Once they heard that my surname was Pecchia, the question soon arose: "Andrew, do you by any chance have any relatives in Matelica?"

Yes, my grandparents had relatives who lived in Matelica. I didn't know any of them, though, or even how many people I was related to. Every now and again somebody asked me that question and I always answered with this information. 

In those early university years I sometimes went out with them in the evening and we occasionally went to have dinner in restaurants in Matelica and surroundings. Maybe a new person joined the group or heard my surname, so they asked the usual question: "Do you have any relatives here? In Matelica there are several people with your surname." Of course, they would all get the same answer.

One day, while I was visiting my grandmother, I asked her about it. Well, finally I could provide a slightly different anwer to anybody who asked: yes, I have relatives but it's just the family who owns the driving school. My grandmother had also mentioned a distant cousin who had worked in cruise ships as a hostess and, if I remember well, had studied to become an interpreter.  

One evening, while we were walking along the main street in Matelica, a girl I had just met asked the usual question. Of course, I was quite happy to answer her with the newly-acquired information. Her reaction, though, surprised me: "Who, Samuela?" I had no idea who she was talking about, so I told her I didn't know any of them. She said she knew a young girl whose family owned the driving school and they were friends. What happened next haunts me still: a few seconds after she said that, she pointed out at a group of girls who were standing further down the road on the left. She said to me: "Look, there she is. She is the one with the short hair. She must have had a haircut.". I just had a few seconds to look at her, as then we turned right into an alley to go to a restaurant. That was the one and only time I ever saw her and I'll never forget that day as long as I live. 

Life went on. I graduated and then I moved to Germany. I started going to Italy every year to visit friends and family and I sometimes had the chance to meet a few of those friends from Matelica. However, the issue of having relatives there and the presence of a distant cousin did not come up much anymore. Nevertheless, I guess Samuela had found a hidden place at the back of my mind.

Fast foward a few years: I think it was around 2010 when I was able to meet an old friend of mine from Matelica and Samuela was mentioned. We met two or three times in the next few years and I remember that the last time we talked he said that he was worried about her. Apparently, she had become quite ill, though we did not go into details and I decided not to ask further. 

In 2013, while I was in London for Christmas to visit my family, I took a spontaneous decision: as I informed my mother about my next trip to Italy the following March, I also told her I would go to Matelica and visit the driving school to finally get to know this mysterious cousin of mine. She turned around to look at me and I noticed the grave and blank look on her face: "Andrew, listen, I believe she's dead." At first, I did not believe it. Indeed, I said to her that she might be mistaken, that maybe it was her mother who had died. She insisted, though: "I read it in an article in an online newspaper: young girl, owner of a driving school, with our surname, who died of cancer? It must be her."

It was her. You can still find the news article online. 

In 2008 and 2010 my maternal grandparents had died. I had been really very close to them since I was a little boy and they had been very important for me all my life. However, when they died, I did not feel the shock I was expecting to feel, maybe because, living in Germany I had seen them only two or three times a year and I knew that they were ill.

The moment I realized that Samuela, the distant cousin I never met, had died, I had the shock of my life. I immediately thought back to that day in Matelica when I saw her just for a few seconds. I can still see her sometimes, a vague memory that I can't even start to describe. If only I had had the chance to say hello and get to know her... well, it wouldn't have changed anything, of course. Maybe we could have kept in touch and when she would have become ill and eventually would have died, I guess I would have been able to deal with the loss in a different way. Instead, now for me it was just the loss of the chance to ever get to know her. 

I still think about her sometimes and about the day I saw her. 

My thoughts are with her family and friends.

Andrew