Javier Firpo
09/15/2021 11:58 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 09/15/2021 11:58 AM
"That's it kid, don't come back, you're cured."
This is what the oncologists told Germán Orozco in 2010, after undergoing what was his last medical check-up.
"
Today I can say that I am a former patient
, but I carried that label for ten years and I became aware of it a long time later, not during the illness, which at first looked at her with denial, with a certain unconsciousness."
Renowned hockey player, captain of the Los Leones national team, and then technical director of the senior team between 2018 and 2020, Germán Orozco's eyes turn red with excitement when he remembers the years 1999 and 2000, when he had to
leave the sporting activity by Hodgkin lymphoma
, a cancer that begins in the lymphatic system. "More than twenty years passed, it was another life, even I was another person. It was very hard, because it happened suddenly, on the eve of the Pan American Games in Winnipeg and suddenly all the effort evaporated."
For Orozco, every September 15 is not another day, "on the contrary, it is a day of reflection, introspection and when there is also the possibility of talks,
psychological and emotional support for someone who has had the disease and can help who go through it,
"says this 45-year-old kinesiologist, referring to World Lymphoma Awareness Day, a date set by the Lymphoma Coalition (NGO that groups 54 patient organizations in 40 countries) since 2004.
Hematologist at the Italian Hospital of La Plata, Virginia Prates points out that "unfortunately we do not have official statistics, but extrapolating the data from other countries,
in Argentina
between 2,000 and 3,000 cases
are diagnosed per year
according to the incidence of this pathology according to our index population ", says the doctor, who indicates that there are two types of lymphomas: Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin," the latter is the most common and also has a wide variety of histological subtypes. "
"Every September 15 is not another day," says Germán Orozco, former manager of Los Leones and a recovered Hodgkin lymphoma patient.
Photo Lucia Merle
Regarding
life prognoses
, Prates points out that "it depends on each of the histological subtypes, the stage of the disease and the moment in which it is detected, so it is key to raise awareness in the population so that it is vigilant in case of the existence of
a palpable node in the neck, groin or armpit
, because there are many that are not palpable. An early diagnosis always leads to a better result. "
"Extreme tiredness"
Orozco began to feel "an extreme fatigue like never before and a high temperature at night" back in 1999, weeks before the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, his main objective. "I did not give him much ball at the beginning,
I thought it would be because of training
, but the symptoms were repeated during the day and I flew with fever at night. At the insistence of my parents I went to the doctor and after several studies they diagnosed me with lymphoma of Hodgkin, a disease of which I had no idea what it was, and about which very little was known. "
Between angry, annoyed and disappointed, Orozco saw how the possibility of going to the Pan American Games was slipping away from him. "I was like very much in mine, I put the starting batteries with what was happening to me. What's more, I preferred to know little, not to internalize myself, that's what my parents were for ... I
was more worried about not being able to play more hockey than dying
, look at my degree of denial. I thought that not being able to play anymore was like dying in life. "
Orozco's sporting life took a radical turn.
He had to stop all activity and begin an invasive chemotherapy treatment that did not give the expected result, so he underwent an
autologous bone marrow transplant
and began the road to recovery.
"At first it was hard because I had to be isolated for three weeks and at that time I didn't have a cell phone ... But I think my head helped me overcome difficulties and in that the doctors were very important, because they
never told me that I would not return to play
... On the contrary, 'it depends on you', they prodded me ".
Orozco at the 2006 Hockey World Cup in Germany with a lymphoma awareness flag.
The transplant was on February 29, 2000 and six months later he was playing the Olympic Games in Sydney. "The truth is that my physical condition was no longer to play - he smiles -, but I had the opportunity to do it in all the games. When Manolo Ruiz (the coach) called me up
I thought it was to reach the water
cans - he laughs again and she wipes her tears. - What Manolo did was an immense human and sporting gesture, and he told me that for the group, both in the dressing room and on the pitch, my presence was fundamental. "
The time of that player, a mixture of talent, rudeness and vehemence, passed. He directed Los Leones until August 2020 and since the beginning of the year he faces the challenge of directing the girls of the San Isidro Club (SIC). "Directing and being related to hockey is a vice that I can't get rid of and I don't think I'll do it. Today I combine that activity with that of a kinesiologist", a profession that he inherited from his father and decided to study at the Universidad del Salvador at the time. player. "Today I feel like another person, cancer teaches, without a doubt."
Orozco, married to Alejandra, a former hockey player, and father of Juan Martín (14) and Matilde (11), feels softer.
"I get emotional, I cry, something that did not happen to me even with a broken ankle. The disease changed my way of being, but it was not immediate, I began to feel those sensations when I was discharged, when I stopped being a patient with cancer. Taking that backpack off me clarified the panorama, today it allows me to take a break, think twice before making a decision and understand something very complicated: that
it is not worth doing bad blood for bullshit
".
"I was more worried about not being able to play hockey than I was about dying," remembers Orozco.
Photo Lucia Merle
The former player mentions the importance of
ACLA, the Argentine Lymphoma Civil Association
, the first group of patients with lymphoma created in 2005. "They do a formidable job accompanying and guiding patients who experience the disease and feel fear, anguish and bewilderment. When I got sick, there was no association like ACLA that would contain, support and guide you as it does today, so I am available whenever they need me. "
Haydée González is the president of ACLA and although she does not have the possibility to say the phrase
"I am a former patient"
, she does proudly affirm that "for twenty years" she has not had relapses "as the doctors predicted."
"So I celebrate life and do not stop doing ultrasound exams every six months," says this 71-year-old dentist, who in 2000 was detected a non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Aware of the disease, an authoritative voice, Haydée highlights the importance of "
getting checked for symptoms
that may be linked to the disease. There are many young people who, for example, detect little balls in the neck and ignore them, have a fever and do not nothing, and lymphoma is a
silent disease
too, which may have no major symptoms and
late diagnosis could be very risky
. "
Germán Orozco, in 2005, together with Haydee González, the president of ACLA, the first group created to contain and guide patients with lymphomas.
From ACLA Haydée offers a handful of statistics to take into account:
75% of those diagnosed did not know the symptoms
, 90% of Hodgkin lymphomas detected early have a chance of cure, 58% of patients
take six months In going to the doctor
after the first symptom, 73% of the patients were unaware of the disease and 62% were misdiagnosed.
Mariana Godoy works at ACLA on the psychological and emotional aspect of patients, "a subject of great importance, ignored by doctors, who leave it in the background because they are immersed in fighting the disease. But we must not lose sight of the fact that Each patient, upon receiving the diagnosis, must go
through various griefs
: loss of health, control, projects that are postponed and canceled, and in many cases the loss of procreation ", describes the psychologist, with a postgraduate degree in psychoanalysis and in psycho-oncology, a former Hodgkin lymphoma patient.
The emotional support consists of a workshop that Godoy provides that, to break the ice, starts from her knowledge as a psycho-oncologist to
her experience as a former patient
. "It is a plus for the patient that the person who supports them has gone through the disease. It must be understood that despite the family support, the patient feels alone in this struggle, with which the personal testimonies, with name and surname, allow that the patient trusts and witnesses the improvement of others who have traveled the same path ".
The specialist is convinced that "
being upbeat, strong, being positive will make it easier to face
cancer
treatment
in a different way, since pain travels differently.
Be
careful, I am not prone to the
tyranny of positive thinking anyway
, because the patient is fed up listening to those words that may be empty or useless. I do emphasize not demonizing the treatment, sometimes seen as worse than the disease ... that's why I emphasize my own experience with each chemotherapy, without psychological preconceptions ".
A meeting of patients with lymphomas in ACLA, two years ago.
"Why me, why now, what am I?"
Godoy believes that these are
questions that lead to an impasse
, so he tries to eradicate them in his emotional containment workshop that is offered once or twice a month. "Although we are looking at the possibility of adding more virtual encounters because they are valuable spaces in which the patient can display their fears, anxieties and select first-hand information, which helps to make cancer another life experience", estimates the professional, which says that the next workshop will be on September 24th.
The possible loss of procreation was one of the elements mentioned by the psycho-oncologist.
Germán Orozco, two days before starting chemotherapy treatment, received a call from his doctor warning him about this alternative and suggested
cryopreservation of semen samples
.
"I was already with my girlfriend Alejandra, who would later be my wife and we have no doubt. The next day I went and left two samples for their preservation that would eventually become Juan Martín and Matilde."
MG
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