“Just have some guts and never give up. Except the moorings.” Roberto’s beautiful story

We received in our newsroom the beautiful testimony of a reader, Roberto Diano, who faced a bad disease and came out fighting, thanks in part to sailing. A story to share, enjoy reading.

TO SAILING I OWE THE PLEASURE OF FREEDOM

It all began in November 2011: diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. There is no time to waste. In January 2012, I entered the operating room in Verona, and my fate was in the hands of Prof. Claudio Bassi. Who, after the “primary” tumor was removed, in January 2013 has to operate again, this time on the liver. Since then, I have been undergoing treatment at the Ieo in Milan, with monthly checkups and visits, also at the oncology department of Lanciano Hospital, a city in which I practice. To make a long story short, I am still alive because of the expertise of the doctors to whom I turned, and who continue to follow me, with appropriate therapies, to enable me to cope with other “secondary” lesions (I prefer to call them that, rather than metastases) still present in my liver.

At this point, I imagine you are wondering why this not-so-happy premise. It’s quickly said: after being fortunate enough to marry, in 2015, Andrea Claudia-whose energies, with her love, are a constant spur to my already natural vitality-I had an unexpected backlash, one of those few that a wife can accept. So here we go: complicit with a vacation, also in 2015, on the boat of a dear newfound friend, Pier Luigi, and his wife Daniela, a passion for sailing, foolishly abandoned years earlier, was reborn in me.

And so began my “adventure,” certainly laughable to many, but the tale of which I hope may be of comfort and support to those who, like me, have necessarily had to come to terms, overnight, with a new enemy. To be fought and countered with all forces, including that of the wind, which from San Lorenzo al Mare, Liguria, began to blow, in July 2016, on the sails of the Bavaria Ladybird, with the hope that the name of my boat, already assigned to it by the previous owner and literally translated to “ladybug,” will also respect its tradition as a good luck charm.

And so it is that, in the time allowed by other duties and commitments-and other surgeries-I have since continued to sail, with Ladybird, along the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, to Sicily and then to Ionian Greece. Today my boat is moored in the roadstead of Ithaca. Wonderful places, magical atmospheres and feelings of absolute psychological well-being. To the doctors who operated on me and those who continue to treat me I owe my life. To my wife, happiness. To sailing, the pure pleasure of freedom, whether real or only imagined, but nonetheless beneficial to my health.

I hope to have strength and energy to complete, on my return from Greece, the circumnavigation of Italy, sailing up the coast of the Adriatic Sea, again with the company and invaluable assistance, in addition to my wife, of my irreplaceable friend Pier Luigi, an excellent and experienced skipper. And I hope, above all, to thus be able to offer an additional contribution of enthusiasm and confidence to those who think they cannot make it, and also to those who are only lazily restrained from going to sea. Ultimately, allowing me a personal note of not too veiled irony, just have some guts and never give up, except for the moorings.

Roberto Diano

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