A difficult path of treatment, and now finally the light at the end of the tunnel: this is what, surprisingly, astronaut Paolo Nespoli told, among the Italians who remained in orbit for the longest time, who has faced a brain tumor in recent months by which he was struck.

The first signs came in November last year, when due to health problems and persistent fatigue, his flights stopped to make room for medical examinations. Then a CT scan showed a spot, which MRI confirmed to be a tumor.

A brain B lymphoma hit him, which forced him to chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation, and a long rehabilitation process.

"The doctor said there was a good chance of a cure, not a cure," Nespoli explains today in an interview with Corriere. "So I replied: let's do everything there is to do".

There are many “side effects related to therapy. Perhaps the hardest moment was the 23-day isolation during the last hospitalization for the autotransplant, at San Raffaele, "he said.

No great fear, actually, but "some days I would have liked it to be clearer and more precise like a training and exam list".

"I do not expect to return to normal - continued Nespoli - but with most of the ability I had before, to continue traveling, giving lectures, talking to the kids, encouraging them to do the impossible. I see these things in my future".

“I feel at the end of a tunnel, I look ahead and see the light”, the conclusion.

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is the most common of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. It is an aggressive and rapidly growing neoplasm that usually responds to first-line treatment while also showing cases of relapse. Estimates indicate that around 150,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with this type of cancer each year.

(Unioneonline / vl)

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