"The courage of women is to always be there in the face of any difficulty": this is what Velia De Angelis, 50 years old, has said, the last 14 of which have been spent fighting multiple sclerosis which has turned her life upside down, but not her will to live.
On the eve of March 8, her ANSA met her in her house in Monterubiaglio, a village in the municipality of Castel Viscardo, a handful of kilometers from Orvieto.
Before her illness, Velia was a great chef, she had conquered important stages and had also been a protagonist on TV.
"Then the diagnosis, at first I continued to work, but then the disease took over, but I continue to fight it," she says from her bed after a day spent doing physiotherapy.
Social networks are her window onto the world and it is mainly from there that Velia talks about her battle.
"Life - she says - is worth living to the full and even the limitations we have we can get around."
"Many interpret multiple sclerosis as the end of everything and even of life, I hope to fight until the end, not to give up and never reach the thought of the end of life", she says proudly.
"For me at the moment - he adds - there is only the thought of the end of the illness, I want the end of suffering, but in this earth, in this life. All this makes Women's Day an even more special day for me, the March 8th is linked to many small conquests and losses that I have had in life. Above all it means liberation from the things that I didn't want, from the things that happened to me and on March 8th I celebrate it beyond the party, it is the day in which I I understood that I had become a woman and I had to fight."
Fighting is her watchword and she does it with physiotherapy and surrounding herself with the affection of her family, friends and doctors who follow her and whom she wants to thank.
And where public health doesn't arrive, it arrives with its initiatives.
"The last one - she says - is a fundraiser that allowed me to purchase a special wheelchair that makes me more independent compared to the traditional chair that was assigned to me by the local health authority".
Velia De Angelis thinks back to her years in the kitchen.
“Aubergine parmigiana – she says – has always been the dish of life”.
She then reveals her love for Pink Floyd, but above all Velia looks to the future.
“I can still give a lot,” she says, “I can still write recipes, but above all I want to live it day by day.”
The last thought is for the women of today and tomorrow: "Make yourself respected and feel free to love whoever you want."
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