Their human value is incalculable. They don't have to fight cancer, because they don't suffer from it, but they experience it firsthand. Every day they face the despair of an oncology patient, their weariness and their fatigue. Every day they try to make this disease a little more bearable. They are there in difficult times to relieve the sick of their suffering and to support their families. They are the volunteers, people who selflessly assist cancer patients, accompany them and smile in terrible circumstances. Because, although in many cases cancer is overcome and the battle is won, volunteers sometimes face the bitterest side of the disease.
The Association of Oncohematological Families of Lanzarote recently organized a course for volunteers, which was attended by around 60 people. Their mission is to support these patients, both at home and in the hospital, accompany them to doctor's visits or carry out different procedures for them, as well as take them to recreational and leisure activities.
Various reasons
La Voz wanted to approach these volunteers, who are not protagonists of this terrible disease but who experience cancer through the eyes of patients. Each one wields a different reason why they decided to get involved in this project, but almost all encourage other citizens to collaborate with these people. These are stories of anonymous people willing to collaborate.
This is the case of Margarita Delgado, 59 years old. Her husband died of cancer and she, instead of sinking, went to Afol to "contribute her little grain of sand and help other people who were living the same experience." "It's a horrible time and you have a terrible time. You need someone to lend you a hand," she says.
Only seven months had passed since her husband died victim of this disease, when Margarita decided to go to Afol. "I loved volunteering, although it was hard", she acknowledges. "My husband's death was very recent, but I needed it," she says.
Another death more
Her experience as a volunteer began, in addition, with a hard setback. She had to witness another death again. "I accompanied a lady, who also died. It gives you pain and you have a bad time, but until she died, she was fine, she was missing a little hair, but she was calm," she explains.
Margarita stayed with this woman to walk. "I was talking to her for two hours. We walked for a little while, about ten minutes and then we sat down and chatted," she says. After her death, Margarita accompanied another woman, this time in the hospital. "She was discharged, and now she is better," she rejoices.
This volunteer recognizes that she is able to help ladies, but that for the moment she rules out accompanying men, because they would remind her of her husband. "The image of my husband would come to me and that would be very hard," she says. Margarita defends the selfless work of these assistants. "I think that the patient speaks with more confidence with us than with their family, because they dare to tell their fears," she says.
But not all volunteers have had a past linked to cancer and have lived this situation in their close circle.
The need to help
"I don't have any family history. Simply, I firmly believe in helping others. The world will never be able to evolve, nor be better, if all people do not become aware that helping people is good, and that we all need help," says Fali Guillén, who decided to be a volunteer "of a real cause" to "not waste time without acting".
"I wanted to dedicate myself to people who really needed help and that I saw the result. It was the first time that I signed up for a project like this and it has been a very good experience," she says. The first patient she accompanied was a 90-year-old woman. "She was lying down, clean and very well cared for. She ate the minimum, by spoonfuls of serum, nothing else," she explains.
The volunteer course helped Fali learn how to face cancer. "You learn to shut up when you have to shut up, to never talk about the disease, you learn to live with the patient, to take them to the pilgrimage, to the church and to the beach and, if they cannot walk, you learn to talk to them, to take them by the arm, to smile at them."
Fali recognizes that this experience, despite having been "magnificent", is "very hard". "Sometimes it is very difficult because patients go through several phases. When they go through the phase of not accepting their disease, they have resentment and are very cruel," she says. "Once I gave a woman a pajama as a gift and she told me that she was giving it to her because she thought she would never get out of bed again." "You have to face the rejection of people, that they think badly of you, that they doubt your effectiveness, you have to work on many things, it is not easy. The patient already has their family members and that must be kept in mind, you should not try to acquire that role, because it does not correspond to me, nor do I want to, I am not Mother Teresa of Calcutta."
In addition, the cases she deals with are very different. "You may have to deal with a person who is dying, who does not get out of bed, and whom you can only shake hands with. But you can also accompany a 48-year-old man, who takes the disease in another way, who goes out into the street, and talks to you as if you were friends."
Facing death
For Fali it is hard to assist these people, but although she suffers, she prefers to give her support to others and be aware that death is just around the corner. "There are very healthy and very cruel people who criticize and mistreat others and it hurts me more to see this, which I have seen, than to see a sick person. You have to face that we all come with a time. You are born at the moment you have to be born and you die in that time, and you have to do a job in between. They seem like things from a book, but they are like that," she says. "I firmly believe that you have to remove straw and rubbish, and do what you have to do, not be fooling around, or spend the afternoon watching novels, but act," she adds.
Beatriz, an Italian of 33 years, was convinced by a friend of hers, who also participates in this volunteering. "I wanted to know if I could really do it, because you never know if you are going to be able to face it, because it is a very delicate issue. I completely ignored the disease and what patients suffer. It was like a personal growth, I opened myself to the possibility of helping someone," she explains.
The reasons why Beatriz signed up for the Afol volunteer course are somewhat more mystical than those of Margarita or Fali. "I am studying Buddhism, I go to India and Nepal many times and I stay doing retreats. And the lamas talk a lot about death. One of the key things about Buddhism is that we live in permanence, we must always be aware that, from one moment to another, death will surprise us. I will never really prepare for death, but I believe in reincarnation and for me death is important," she says.
For Beatriz, the attention to cancer patients involves "treating them with dignity, and respect". "You have to listen to them, be with them, help the family if they need it. Surely you mess up due to lack of experience, because nobody is perfect, but one tries to do it as best as one can."
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