(ANSA) - ROME, JANUARY 04 - Fighting for something, one's health, rather than against something, a tumor. This is the change of perspective that allowed Pasquale Pollinzi to elaborate and face in the best possible way as a teenager and over time as a young adult the disease that struck him at the age of 14, in 2013, a lymphoma, and for which he is still being treated. He does not always win, he is in fact in the fourth quarter in almost 10 years, but at the same time he does not let himself be beaten without reacting. Pasquale, 23, who came from Calabria for treatment at the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital in the onco-hematology department directed by Professor Franco Locatelli, wrote a book - "𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞"- in which he talks about his fight against cancer and also the struggle that each of us must face against difficulties. A book, which as he explains to ANSA, originates from his interest in sport, in particular the free wrestling of which he was champion, arriving at the national circuits, and for the ForzeArmate, in which he would like to enlist, especially in the Navy. "The first person who needed the manual - emphasizes Pasquale - was me. Then I realized that it could have a therapeutic function for others as well". The book is also a way to make known the particular condition of adolescents who face a neoplasm, "in limbo, neither adults, nor children". "Many adolescents - adds Pasquale - do not feel in their place, neither in the adult wards nor in those for children.The games, the colorful environment, which distract the little ones, can in fact give even annoyance. A teenager has the awareness of an adult. "
Together with other young people taking care of the Child Jesus, Pasquale founded the 4You APS Association precisely to tell about himself and get to know the world of adolescents and young people with cancer.
Established in 2018, 4You aims to implement "initiatives to focus on specific needs, with a group of volunteers with ad hoc training, to better understand what children experience. To make them understand that in many cases the disease is just an obstacle in the path of personal fulfillment ".
(HANDLE).