Núria Esponellà: "I've lived with cancer with my breasts exposed, literally and metaphorically."

"With her breasts exposed," literally and metaphorically, is how writer Núria Esponellà has experienced the breast cancer she was diagnosed with in October 2023. Literally because it has been demanded of her by mammograms, tactile examinations, radiotherapy sessions, radiotherapy sessions... because, as she explains, with the disease she has learned to value the essential things and, like someone throwing away their bra, to shed the armor and limiting and useless thoughts in order to feel free and love herself and her body, including her breasts marked by aging and the scars from the operation. With bare breasts It is also the title of her latest book, where the writer bears witness to the pain she has suffered, but also to the courage and positivity with which she has faced the illness.

The writer welcomes us to her home in Ventalló, surrounded by orchards, totaling 50 hectares with more than half a million trees cultivated using environmentally friendly techniques. These trees supply the farm shop that bears her name, Fru Puigbert, along with her brother Joan, with "fruit ripened in the Empordà sun." Her house's lush garden offers magnificent views of the Empordà plain, the landscape she loves so much and that has helped her so much through her illness. "Escapes to the forest and the sea are part of my life, but now I view them as a complementary therapy that gives me energy and allows me to calm the voice in my mind, to stop and rest," explains Esponellà. Many mornings, she leaves home with no other goal than to "feel the heartbeat of the earth": lying in a field, letting the north wind caress her, finding a pine tree to lean her back against and imagining herself joining its roots to receive the strength of its sap, observing the fig and almond trees she cultivates, with a resilience and vital resistance that she associates with her way of coping with illness.

The camper and the tractor

A daughter of Celrà, she settled in Ventalló in 1981, a village that she considers a paradise due to its proximity to the sea and the forest, and because it allows her to "live close to the farmers." She has visited numerous countries, including India, where she spent two months collaborating with the Vicenç Ferrer Foundation. However, for the past few years, she has especially enjoyed zero-mile trips, which she often makes with her husband in a camper van or on a John Deere mini-tractor they bought for excursions that involve linking mountain paths. "We usually take paths that run through fields and forests, away from the main roads, and discover villages we thought we knew but had never set foot in." She also enjoys short excursions alone, with the tractor or on foot. In recent days, for example, she has been to the Pagesa spring, located between Vilopriu and Colomers, and to the Pi dels Tres Troncs, between Gaüses and Pins. "All of this makes me very happy. It gives me a sense of freedom, which is a necessity because when you've lived intensely in the clinics, you feel suffocated, and you need to feel free," she says.

Rolling up your sleeves in the face of cancer

Núria Esponellà's book begins with the story of what was supposed to be a check-up mammogram, but instead it revealed two carcinomas in her left breast. "When they told me, I thought I didn't deserve it and that I didn't have to go through an illness like this, but I always had the feeling that I would recover. I told myself: I'll heal, I won't die from this, I still have a lot of work to do," she explains. Two weeks later, the second carcinoma was detected in her other breast. "Then I broke down and cried like never before."

Esponellà assures, however, that after the initial shock, she decided to "roll up her sleeves" and, instead of fighting the illness, face it positively. "The attitude must be proactive, constructive, with maximum involvement but without worry, because if you worry, you won't help yourself," she reflects.

Camping near the Trueta River

Núria's radiotherapy treatment coincided with the worsening of her husband's malignant arrhythmias, with trips to the Josep Trueta Hospital in Girona and several admissions. "Since I had to continue my treatment, I decided to take the camper van and park it near the Trueta Hospital: I slept, ate, meditated... At 12 noon I went to the hospital's critical care unit to see my husband, and at 4 p.m. my radiotherapy treatment began. On my trips to the hospital, I walked through the nearby woods, in the Taialà area. I know them all.

"I handled that whole ordeal well, but it made me ask a question that is rarely discussed: who takes care of the caregiver who is sick? I had been taking care of my mother-in-law, my mother, and then my husband, and it turns out that I get sick and have to take a long time off myself, but...?" "I have the support of my wonderful friends," she reflects.

Complementary therapies

Despite firmly believing in conventional medicine and expressing gratitude to the medical team that treated her, Esponellà believes there is a "defect" in information about the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, or how to prepare for these treatments. "It was through asking questions at Oncolliga or with people with breast cancer that I learned that it is necessary to apply nourishing creams and massages two or three months before radiotherapy," she says. She also believes that, in addition to hospital care, the help of complementary therapies such as meditation, acupuncture, visualizations, yoga, and, most especially, contact with nature, has been key to her recovery.

Writing

Author of a dozen novels, including the acclaimed Tramontana soul (Prudenci Bertrana Prize), and poetry books such as Empúries NotebookNúria Esponellà has found writing to be an invaluable aid in coping with cancer. She jotted down everything she's experienced since her diagnosis in notebooks that have resulted in the book. With bare breasts"The book is an exercise in complete stripping, and I was a little anxious about making it public. I wondered: should I put it in a drawer? But after organizing the writings to give them a book format, I gave them to my editor, who found them beautiful," the writer explains. "Then I thought that if that story had touched her, it might also touch other people, not just those suffering from cancer, since I talk about what sustains us when everything falls apart," Esponellà adds.