The double bill of living with cancer: “I lost my job and asked my family for money”

Cancer is “the lottery that affects the most & rdquor ;, according to the motto of the Cancer Research Center’s ironic campaign on the occasion of the World Day Against This Diseasewhich takes place this Friday. Because it is a tragic lottery that forever disrupts the lives of more than 200,000 people every year in Spain it kills about 100,000 and leaves a trail of pain in patients and families. In addition, far from increasing revenue, it causes a cost more than 10,000 euros to 41% of familiesaccording to calculations by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC).

And it is that patients often have to incur costs and efforts such as travel hundreds of kilometers receive treatment, pay for expensive cream for radiotherapy or the necessary Psychological support to overcome very difficult situations. 90% of autonomies do not provide specialized psychological care or are inadequate.

The vast majority of patients should resign their job and returning to the labor market is not always easy. Therefore, his economic dependence it increases in almost 20% of cases and nearly 30,000 diagnosed people are unable to bear the costs due to their situation of labor vulnerability, again according to the AECC.

the life of this three patients an example of the physical, emotional, and economic sacrifices that a cancer diagnosis requires of them or their family members.

Beatriz: “I lost my job and I had to ask my family for financial help”

Beatriz Parra found out she had breast cancer when she was just 33 years old, a seven-month-old girl, and had just moved from Bilbao to Arroyo de la Luz, a municipality in Cáceres. It was so hard “guantazo“That life meant to him that it” took a month to become aware of the situation & rdquor; and suffered a anxiety crisis which required hospitalization. After diagnosis and assimilation, treatment arrived: six sessions of chemotherapy, two surgeries, and 30 sessions of radiotherapy. And he is still in treatment, taking a daily pill and receiving quarterly injections “with no end date & rdquor ;, according to what he says.

Yet, a year and a half after receiving the diagnosis (he heard about it in July 2017), the medical court ruled that he could re-enter the world of work. The problem is that the company where I worked as a beautician and masseur the contract has not been renewed during sick leave, so that Social Security took over your economic benefit, but to your surprise this situation exhausted your right to receive a subsidy when you are unemployed. For this reason, when the sick leave ended, he had to resort to “family support”Until he was appointed to his previous company.

The problem is the operations have damaged the left arm, so eight months later he had to apply for sick leave again and assimilate that he could not return to a job he “loved” with a disability in his arm. “It’s hard to think you’re not the same person anymore,” he says.

He finally had torediscover yourself”, Studies some oppositions to custodian and works as a telemarketer in a company associated with ONCE.

Gloria: “I traveled 320 kilometers a day to receive chemotherapy & rdquor;

Gloria Martínez knows what it is to travel two and a half hours drive after undergoing a chemotherapy session. He lives in Vielha, in the Aran Valley, and 15 years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer that forced her to travel for six months both for surgery and for each of the chemo sessions. In total, more than two hours of round trip and similar to the return, in a single day and with a return trip, especially in the first sessions, with the side effects and unwanted from treatment.

In addition, at that time he had a 15-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old daughter, which forced him to friends for you Passop while spending her life in the hospital and a car. In Vielha he has no family and his friends were his savior table for the difficult reconciliation between cancer and the needs of children. As for expenses, they paid for her taxi but she had to to cover maintenance.

And a year ago the complicated situation This has been repeated, with a new malignant diagnosis in the other breast. The difference is that there is now a agreement between the Hospital del Mar and the Hospital del Valle de Arán and she was able to receive chemotherapy near the house. Although, it had to move a month and a half to Barcelonawhere he stayed with family, to radiotherapy.

Gloria understands “that they do not have the most complex tests or radiotherapy in the smaller hospitals ” but he does believe that the lives of many cancer patients can be improved if focus the queries or the analyzes are performed in nearby outpatient clinics, so as not to have to make “unnecessary trips”.

Carmen: “I had to ask for leave because my husband needed me”

In the fatal lottery of cancer, the type of tumor that suffered, at what stage it is and what organ it affects is very important. And Jesus, the husband of Carmen Toledano, at the age of 45 suffered from one of the most aggressive tumors and with less survival, that of pancreas. But the least harmful, a neuroendocrine of the pancreas, although with liver metastases, as it took them a while to see him because he was suffering from a virus that masked him. That day was “the worst of our lives“, Carmen remembers, after hearing the doctor the words” tumor, pancreas and metastasis “in the same sentence.

Carmen had to ask for sick leave because “could not sleep, eat, to do anything & rdquor ;. The leave lasted the two months it took to “give cancer a name and surname & rdquor; based on tests. He later requested a leaves because “no company supports so many mistakes & rdquor; and she felt that both her husband and her daughter, only five years old,” needed “her. that year was very hard, not only because Jesus underwent an operation for which the medical team needed a month to prepare, but also because of the secondary effects of the treatments. Chemotherapy failed and Jesus participated in a immunotherapy trial which stopped the cancer for a year, but then activated it again.

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Carmen, however he rejoined after his work, after 12 months’ leave, on the recommendation of the oncologist. “She saw that I had to normalize my life and that he felt a little independent. & Rdquor; and since then he has not been able to leave it & rdquor; for that is what “it evades a little”.

Jesus died in October 2020, three and a half years after the diagnosis. And the covid done nothing but suffering increases. First because “every time they came to him with the PPE to give him the treatment, my daughter and I thought he would get infected, that he would not come back and it was like a duel & rdquor ;, he remembers. And then because they both became infected when Jesus wanted to come home from the hospital to die. “It was horrible,” he sums up.