The Story of Beatrice and Francesco

It’s a story of glioblastoma, but it’s also a story of love, of the will to live, of resilience, and like all stories, it’s a story common to many others, but it’s also a special story. Read it all the way to the end and then keep reading. Below is Beatrice’s story of glioblastoma, written by Francesco…

Dying at 51
It all started with a phone call from you. You called me, scared, worried, saying:
“Honey, I got a flat tire.”
At first I was shocked… then I said:
“Do you need help? Are you hurt?”
“No, love, everything’s fine, it’s just…”
“Come on, Bea, what do you care? Go to the nearest tire shop and have it changed. I’ll wait for you at home.”
You told me about the accident: you’d hit a curb and poof, the tire was gone.
You insisted: “Franci, but I didn’t see it!”
“Well, what do you want? You must have been distracted.”
“Me?” you replied. “In decades of driving, never!”
And yet something had happened.
We put the incident behind us and continued with our lives, our happy days. But you, love, were
thoughtful. You remembered that tire…
Then, one evening, at the Puesta del Sol, during one of our usual, peaceful walks, you
stop, freeze, and ask me:
“Franci, where are you?”
“Love, I’m here, by your side.”
“Yes, but I can’t see you.”
There, in that instant, the world stopped. The earth stopped rotating. Life, our life,
changed. It was the end of November 2020.
What do you do in these situations? Well, make an appointment for a visit. Ophthalmologist? Sure, an ophthalmologist.
And so we did.
At the first visit, Beatrice leaves dissatisfied: the doctor didn’t go into more detail. The visual field test
is inaccurate, and she—my love—is agitated, annoyed. Returning home, she rails
at that incompetent doctor.
“My love, don’t be alarmed, don’t get upset. I’ll make a second appointment.”
And so it was. Within a few days, we find ourselves in the office of a doctor, this time
meticulous, fussy. He investigates, verifies, visual field, checks, and pronounces:
“I’m not the doctor you need. Make an appointment with a neurologist, because the
optic nerve has something abnormal.”
“What?”
I leave Beatrice in the office, go out, and start calling left and right, looking for an
urgent specialist appointment.
Nothing, not for several days, weeks.
I return to the office disappointed: “I can’t find an appointment.”
At this point, in all honesty, I turn to the doctor and ask:
“What would you do?”
He says: “Tomorrow morning, it was almost 8:00 PM, go to the emergency room and insist on a CT scan.”
And so it was.
It was the morning of December 5, 2020, when Beatrice and I walked through the emergency room doors for the first time—and
unfortunately not the last.
My love, sucked in by those doors, and I outside, waiting. It was Covid time, and therefore everything was more
difficult, complicated. All day: CT scans, tests, checks.
But there were no beds available, and you, my love, anxious and worried, wanted to go
home. We were there, separated by a glass door. I called you to reassure you, and the doctor, for his part,
who didn’t want to let you go out:
“I’ll find you a bed,” he said.
And so it was. Shortly before midnight, you called me—me standing there like a madman—and said:
“They’re admitting me.”
During the first few days in the hospital, you were going berserk. Only later, after learning more and getting more information,
did I learn that it was the damned glioblastoma that was causing these—and many other—mood swings,
attitudes, and meanness you would never have done or said.
I still remember that day when, in the throes of a nervous breakdown, you said horrible things to me. You treated me
badly, something that had never happened in all our 25 years of love. But then, a moment later, with tears
in your eyes, you apologized. You realized, and we hugged.
From that moment on, you did everything, tried everything, attempted everything.
How angry you were that time when I came home with herbs and natural preparations… So much anger,
so much crying, so much despair. But nothing.
After the neurologist’s definitive diagnosis, you were at a crossroads: biopsy or surgery.
Calm but determined, as always, you said:
“If you really have to pierce my head, do it. But take it out!”
And so, a few days before Christmas Eve 2020, we flew to Verona
to meet the person who would perform the surgery.
Beatrice and I had retired to live on an island in the Balearic archipelago for seven years.
We had given up everything: home, work, friends – except our two beloved cats – and had
moved with the desire to enjoy life.
Which was true until the monster arrived.
In Verona, on December 29th, at first light, you entered the operating room. I was there, in the atrium of the Polo
Confortini, waiting.
You didn’t miss a thing: at 3:30 PM, the earthquake. A powerful jolt. And you were there, fighting.
The intervention goes beyond
I’m sorry, but they won’t let me see you. I’m going crazy. It’s not possible. I don’t
care about Covid, I tell the person standing in my way.
“They took her to intensive care. I have to see her, at all costs.”
And so I watch the comings and goings, the doors opening and closing, who comes in, who leaves… at the right moment,
I sprint and enter the reserved area.
There, with tears in my eyes, I ask, I plead, I beg:
“Tell me how she is…”
They answer:
“She can’t stay here.”
“I won’t move until the doctor tells me how Beatrice is.”
The intensive care doctor arrives. He updates me. He reassures me:
“Everything’s fine.”
A few minutes later, the Professor who conducted the operation calls me. I run to his office and
sit down. He tells me:
“The situation is worse than I expected. I removed everything I could, I did my best.
But this glioblastoma is multiform, infiltrating. More than 6–7 cm of mass, partially removed.
The histological tests will reveal the full name: grade IV, non-methylated.”
And for those who know… it’s a death sentence.
The next day I manage to say goodbye to you. Just a few minutes, but I’m there. My love.
The hospital stay continues, and after a few days you are discharged.
You call me and say:
“I’m going out.”
I come to get you with a bouquet of red roses for you.
You look beautiful, with those 17 stitches in your head that we try to hide with your copper-red
hair and a nice hat.
Once again you surprise me. To my question:
“What do you want to do?” “I’ve rented a house.”
You reply:
Let’s go, let’s go to the mountains, to the snow.”
I think… sure, why not?
And here we are, catapulted from the hospital to the snowy Asiago plateau, with sunny days. You,
playing in the snow, walking with me.
We spend fantastic days. It all seems over.
It seems…
But then, during the meeting with the oncologist and radiation therapist, we learn another painful aspect:
radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy is needed. Immediately. Maximum in a few weeks.
I start researching online, I call other centers in Italy. Through a friend, I send all the
documentation abroad: Holland, USA. Another friend helps me with Israel.
I track down centers in Italy. I research, I read, I learn…
Every time I find myself banging my head against a wall: there is no effective cure.
I have a private meeting with the oncologist. Devastating news.
I call Bologna: ditto. Milan: ditto. Barcelona: ditto.
Until yesterday, I didn’t even know this tumor existed. Now I’m desperate to
study it, understand it, know how it’s evolving.
I learn that the prognosis is about a year and a half.
Bea sometimes asks me questions during my research, and I update her.
I spare her the worst news, I try to tell her only the hopes.
But she’s not stupid. She knows too. She’s read.
Survival is limited.
The effort I make is immeasurable. When you have the love of your life beside you and you know
that, soon…
Every day I force myself to be positive. To be by her side. To help her.
During that period, the radiotherapy and chemotherapy weaken her. In particular, the radiotherapy has an effect on
her that disorients her.
In certain environments, like the bathroom, she has a crisis.
She tells me—because we haven’t yet reached the point where I’ll be in the bathroom with her—that she can’t
coordinate herself:
A dirty piece of clothing? She puts it in the toilet instead of the wastebasket.
In front of the mirror, she asks herself:
“What am I supposed to do here?”
She cries.
The nausea and vomiting attacks immediately arrived, at the first session.
They were promptly resolved with a medication the ward nurse gave me.
I’d like to mention the healthcare staff: doctors, nurses, everyone.
We met people—human beings—who did everything they could to help us, to alleviate our pain, to try
to resolve the situation.
Especially on the island, where Beatrice wanted to follow the Stupp protocol.
I believe that without their help, their support, it would have been even more difficult.
On the ward, in the corridors, at the reception… she was Beatrice, I was Francesco.
People, not patients. Not numbers.
Beatrice underwent all the possible radiotherapy sessions combined with Temozolomide and cortisone. At the
monitoring MRI, the result: progression.
They tell us it could be an effect of the radiotherapy.
There’s no need to despair.
We continue with Temodal.
One morning she wakes up and can’t speak: aphasia. Her right arm won’t move.
I help her get dressed, and we go to the emergency room.
The solution is found with a high dose of dexamethasone.
That evening, she partially regains her speech.
Another day, we’re in a jewelry store: Beatrice wants to have some rings enlarged.
With all the cortisone, her slender body has changed.
While we’re sitting talking, I notice a change. Slight, almost imperceptible… but something catches
my attention.
She stops talking.
We say goodbye to the store and get in the car toward home. After a few kilometers: a sudden epileptic seizure.
I knew. I’d read. They’d warned me.
But finding my love in my arms, in the throes of a seizure… I was afraid of losing her, there, in the
car.
It does
I hold her so she doesn’t bite her tongue, so she doesn’t choke on the drool that’s coming out.
I try to reassure her, I caress her.
As soon as I can, I turn around and rush to the hospital.
The neurologist in the emergency room begins to bring her back to consciousness, administering a drug.
It’s nighttime. Beatrice insists on going home.
The doctors advise against it. Then they understand. They assess the seriousness of the condition and give the okay.
Let’s go.
Beatrice loves sleeping in her bed, our bed, where, in my arms, we said goodbye for the
last time.
And she’s gone further.
A few days later, I have an argument with the oncologist.
“It’s unmethylated… what are we waiting for to switch to the second-line drug?”
And so, Beatrice gets the intravenous treatment with Avastin.
Here the reactions and complications begin. First, two nasty sores, wounds at the base of her breast.
She tells me they’re painful, but she tolerates them. Positive as ever, she downplays the situation and moves on.
Then, severe hepatitis: drug intoxication, they say.
She’s urgently hospitalized for more than twenty days, almost a month, to fix her liver and
avoid anything else.
End of October 2021.
Upon discharge, she’s positive—as always, as only Beatrice could be—even during her
ordeal.
But then something happens.
The oncologist calls me in for a meeting, alone.
He tells me that the general situation doesn’t allow for further treatment:
she’s too debilitated, her liver compromised.
“Forcing it would only worsen her quality of life.”
In the days that follow, Beatrice slowly loses strength in her right arm and leg.
Even the vision in that eye—already damaged—vanishes completely.
Thus we arrive at the beginning of 2022.
There are times when she seems serene…
It seems so. But we both know that’s not the case.
Yet another MRI shows a recurrence.
We plan a trip to Padua to speak with the team testing Regorafenib:
Beatrice can’t get in.
We go to Trento for proton therapy: she’s not a candidate.
We return to Verona to evaluate stereotactic therapy: nothing to do, given her type of glioblastoma.
Beatrice is tired. She’s struggling.
Yet, with her will to live, she tells me:
“Let’s go on vacation, wander around… I want to see the Mantua area. And then we’ll go down to Lazio,
Circeo, Sperlonga, and finally Gaeta.”
We drive for miles and miles, having fun, and crying.
We return to our island at the end of May, celebrating her 51st birthday.
But she’s starting to get worse.
The palliative care team intervenes, a group of fantastic people who help Beatrice and me.
She can no longer speak.
Yet we communicate…
Yes, with our thoughts.
I feel her. She communicates with me. I understand her.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but it happened.
Beatrice is excellent. She uses her eyes, her grimaces.
I print some drawings, at the speech therapist’s suggestion, to try to help her…
But she doesn’t recognize the symbols. She doesn’t understand them.
It’s heartbreaking to see a beautiful, intelligent, active woman, a lover of life…
reduced to this state.
It’s not fair.
The wheelchair arrives. Bathroom supplies. Everything needed to help her live her last
days with dignity.
Twenty months after the diagnosis, in our bed, in my arms,
Beatrice flies away.
Free.
Beatrice and I faced this disease together.
We tried everything.
We tried, even knowing it was perhaps in vain.
We traveled, laughed, joked, we despaired, we cried.
All together. Always together.
Joy, the longing for each other, accompanied us until the end.

… Francesco, like many companions, parents, and children of a patient, finds himself alone and, like everyone else, must find a way to survive. You can read the story of his extraordinary response in this recently published book, “Camminerai, amore, camminerai”.