Inspiring Story of Franco Di Mare’s Battle with Mesothelioma: A War Reporter’s Journey

“I was sitting in front of his desk. “Houston, we have a problem,” the professor told me. “Francesco, I don’t know how to tell you. Right now I would like to be a village animator and not a doctor. You have mesothelioma. aggressive.” “What level?” “High level”.

He understood immediately.
“I knew very well what it was. I continued, silent, with my hands on my head. And the teacher got upset. “Hey! And what is it now? We will respond, we will fight, you will see that we can do it.” Franco Di Mare, 68 years old, who was a person – war news and TV presenter, to control his breathing when he speaks so long. But I don’t give up. I trust research.” Next to him is a large tank on wheels, which follows him wherever he goes. He has a transparent tube in his nose. “It’s an oxygen diffuser, now it’s my lung. Before he helped me only at night. For about ten days, though, I can no longer turn it off. I am connected as astronauts. If you look closely it looks like R2-D2, the little robot from Star Wars.” The little dog Lili jumped around him.

He calls him by name, his enemy.
“When I was little, the family’s voice was lowered: “That person has a serious illness”. As if, by naming it, the monster enters your house. On the other hand, I’m straight. I have cancer. Today we treat ourselves and often recover. Not from this one. It doesn’t go away, at most you can slow it down, but it stays there and it’s one of the worst.”

“Why me?”. She found the answer.
“Because I spent a lot of time in the Balkans, among depleted uranium bullets, hyper-fast, hyper-destructive, capable of demolishing a building. Each explosion released endless particles of asbestos into the air. One was enough. Six thousand times lighter than hair. I probably met her in Sarajevo, in July 1992, my first mission. Or the last one, in 2000, who knows. I did not know it, but I was on the breath of death. The incubation period can last up to 30 years. Here we are”.

He wrote a book about him that will come out tomorrow: «Le parole per lo dirlo» (Sem, Feltrinelli).
“To tell about the wars outside of me and the one inside me. An essential little dictionary. No pity. It is my will.”

An ordinary evening three years ago.
“I was sitting here on this sofa, watching a stupid program on TV. A terrible pain exploded between my shoulder blades, a stable injury. I thought it was interstitial pain. Instead it was a collapse of the pleura, a pneumothorax. I thought: it’s nothing, it will pass. I changed position, I seemed to feel less her. I slept on it, but I couldn’t breathe. I thought I had Covid, but the tests came back negative. After 20 days like this, I decided to do some checks at the Gemelli Polyclinic. “

And there?
“They put me through stress tests. After one I passed. Run to the x-ray room for an x-ray. Instead of the right lung there was nothing. It had collapsed along with the pleura, the film that surrounds it. Half of his ribcage was empty. They tried to pump air to lift him up, but it wasn’t enough. They reattached it with some kind of stapler. But first they did a biopsy of the tissue. And finally there is the judgment that makes me inescapable.”

Mesotheliomain detail.
“The infection was in the pleura, apart from two small points where it was painful. And from there, damn it, the lie came out. Decoration gave me two years of life. But then, six months ago, there was a repeat. She revealed herself in the same way. A very sharp pang. This time to the left. I breathe with a third of my lung capacity. “

He can no longer live without this device.
“Until twenty days I went out to do the shopping. Two steps. At most I kept the portable breather with me, which weighs 15 kilos. But it lasts an hour and you have to hope it doesn’t fall. One night it happened, I was having a bad time. Now I no longer have autonomy. I was a very active person. Look, I’m wearing slippers because my feet are so swollen that my shoes don’t fit, I, like a good Neapolitan, was always handsome.”

He writes that he almost went to look for this evil.
“Meaningless, because I was completely unaware of the danger, under the gray Balkan sky that was always dusty. Breathing the night air, while I slept on cotton stuck between tank tracks or in gutted factories. But it was my job.”

A war reporter.
“The first time the operator Antonio Fabiani and I left for Sarajevo, we only had a microphone, a camera, cassettes and batteries. As soon as they got off the Hercules C-130 he convinced a French colleague to sell him a bulletproof vest for 200 dollars. We took turns wearing it. We played it off.”

The worst time of the last three years.
“Your loved ones need to be told that the disease is curable but not curable. You can extend the date of the day, without sending it endlessly. The time we have is precious, you will only understand when you are leaving. And decide not to waste even a moment again. “

He writes: “Sick people seem deeper and lighter than you healthy people”.
«Because we look at other people with different eyes, more forgiving, understanding».

“Whoever is sick will fall in love with the world.”
“In illness, time slows down, it imposes its own rhythm, you are more alert, you see things you looked at before. Today I like it a lot. And I will be angry. Couldn’t I be like this before? Should I have waited until I got sick?

Do you have any regrets?
“No, I was lucky to do the job I dreamed of, to live a hundred lives.”

He failed…
«To visit Antarctica. Learn how to play the piano Stefano Bollani. And see the Fiji Islands. I loved diving, now I can’t breathe, which is a paradox.”

Do you hate being cheated on?
“No. I understand that it is an aspect of me, one of many. Evil is part of nature. But I am not my illness.”

He is frustrated by Rai’s senior management.
“When I became ill I asked for my service record, with the list of missions, to support the diagnosis. I sent at least 10 emails, from the CEO to the head of personnel. No answer”.

Silence.
“With some I had coffee every morning. I was a manager like them, the interim director of Raitre. I texted them on my cell phone, calling them by name: “I have a terminal illness.” They ignored me. Disgusting, they should be ashamed. In addition, the building on Viale Mazzini is full of asbestos. In whispers, they advise you not to hang pictures on the wall.”

Enjoy the memories.
«Mama Maria prepared aubergine parmigiana. He filled them up in the pan. And I, kneeling on the chair, I poured the sauce with a ladle. I can smell that smell now.”

Despite all that.
“I have a beautiful life, you know? I am with the people I love. My dear sisters. I am protected and cared for, I feel like a little sultan. We always settle on our first love – I was, in high school, a dancer in San Carlo – but the most important one is the last one, who will be with you in the steps of last. For me it is Giulia. We have been together for eight years. There are more than 30 differences between us, before it was so obvious.” The beautiful brunette girl approaches him: “Love, do you feel cold?”.

And he has many friends around him.
“We love each other. They come for dinner. The other evening I cooked linguine in bread sauce with baby squid. I’m starving, with all the cortisone I take. The oncologists gave me a glass of red wine in the evening.”

Do you look at the calendar?
“No, I’ll be 69 on July 28, but I don’t know if I’ll get there. Maybe yes. I am calm, I am not afraid. The idea of ​​suffering scares me, but I have attended a dozen funerals of colleagues younger than me. And I am miraculously alive. During a gang shooting in Albania, a bullet went through the back of my neck. I didn’t die because I bent down to get a battery in my bag. I consider myself a lucky man.”