A personal visual diary
on
the Art of Disease
by
Mauro Fiorese

[image-comparator left=”https://www.libraincancer.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_2731.jpg” right=”https://www.libraincancer.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IMG_1316.jpg” method=”fade-in” width=”100%” value=”50″ link_images=”false” overlayed_slider=”false”][/image-comparator]

Chapter 5
Research/Research

 

If you are a professional Artist you should know what that means.
It’s about knowledge.
If you don’t know the History of your
Medium, if you don’t know its Technology, if you don’t know its Market, than… you’re just playing.
Even though also a Professional
should never forget to play!
So… I decided that
I wanted to become a Professional ILL!
How?
Again, it’s about knowledge.
I simply wanted to know more.

I knew I was not a doctor, but I knew some.
I knew I was not going to search randomly on Google.
But, when I did it rationally, I’ve found out about the European Charter of Patients’ Rights and I studied it.
I became a person with 100% of disability. I know, it doesn’t sounds so good, but at least it became easier to park my car with my brand new disability parking pass.
At the end of the day I was finally getting to know more.
Including about my rights.

I have few very good friends that I can count on but I know a lot of People because I travel the world since
I was 20 years old.
This makes me feel good also in
terms of quantity of all messages I receive every day.
But, because of this, so many messages were issuing similar things, like: “you should know this doctor” or “you have to meet my analyst”. And again: “this diet will change your life” or “you can’t find
this miraculous product
in your Country”.
For the first four months I was so confused! I’ve read books, I’ve seen movies and met a lot of people with
any kind of Cancer.
And Cancer became the main Issue of my Life.
But I thought: “this is not good!”
So, thanks to my brother Marco, I was able to get a privileged second opinion on my disease and I went with him to New York to meet a specialist from one of the biggest Foundation who created several trials on Lung Cancer, tested on more than 10.000 patients.

They were testing my DNA in order to find any possible gene mutation in my body. At this point I was open to almost everything. I knew I would have missed my Family, but I was ready to leave to the U.S. as the doctors told me to be ready for everything.
“I was born ready” I said to myself .
“I have always been. I’m the kind of person who love surprises, accept changes, understand diversity and, as an artist, I’m very curious!”.
But I hate to complain.
And this disease is taking me to a level of suffering that I only experienced before with Death.
And only because we can only experience it closely, but never in first person, Death will always remain the greatest of all Mysteries. So when a diseased scares you so much it is because it’s giving you a taste – and a bitter one – of Death.
Than you become literally omnivore.
Funny, uh?
You are now Vegan but metaphorically you become Omnivore!

This was my reaction after a lot of insecurity.
I remember once I went to a book presentation and the author was trying to convince the audience that Chemotherapy was not good.
At the very beginning I thought ” wow, she’s so brave! She made it by herself!” But than I realized that it wasn’t a positive message simply because every Cancer is different as well as we all are! Therefore we all need different cures. Certainly that was a great approach in terms of how your mind can effect your disease positively as well as how depression can make it much worse.
And it can kill you.
Science itself can’t make miracles.
We can.
Our Love can.
Persistence can.

Chapter 6
Science/ Art