LIVORNO. She discovered leukemia in 2022. And since then, to defeat the disease, she has fought like a lioness. Without ever giving up on all the obstacles that faced her and undergoing experimental treatments that if it had not been for a multitude of collateral complications, the last fatal one being pneumonia, would have led her to victory. To stay alive. “But unfortunately – says her sister Caterina – after a relapse everything was more difficult, she didn’t make it, even though she fought with all her might”.
The tragedy
Livorno cries Valentina Lassandro34 years old, waitress until 2022 in the restaurant “Da Pino”, in Borgo: the announcement of her death has arrived Tuesday 2nd July. Originally from the Apulian town of Acquaviva delle Fonti, in the province of Bari, like her family, she moved to Livorno when she was little, where she graduated from the Ipsia Orlando. A very well-known girl in the city, whose passing leaves an unfillable void among her many friends and acquaintances. Incredulous for such a young woman torn from existence. “She discovered the disease two years ago – her sister recalls – and risked dying already at the end of 2022. I donated her bone marrow, she managed to survive, but then unfortunately there was a relapse and we started an experimental treatment at the Sant’Orsola polyclinic in Bologna. It was working, giving good results, but unfortunately the related pathologies such as infections, on several occasions, forced us to temporarily interrupt the treatments. At the beginning of June, for example, she returned to Livorno after the fourth cycle of therapy. The last crisis was respiratory, pneumonia. Last Sunday we went to the emergency room, then the clinical picture worsened and in the evening of Monday 1st July I received the terrible news. Pneumonia was the cause of death.”
The sister’s words
Caterina remembers her sister as a person who was “strong, good, a fighter, a hard worker, she loved animals so much, she had a passion for the color blue, for tattoos, with pierced ears and I was her point of reference”. “From long hospital stays – the girl continues – my sister always came out on top. She fought like a lioness and would have defeated the disease if it hadn’t been for the infections related to the fragility of her immune defenses”. Lassandro wants to give “a special thank you to the hematology department of the Florentine hospital of Careggi, especially to the doctor Francesco Mannelli, because the staff of the department saved her several times, always followed her and never abandoned her, they were of great help and support”. But not only that. When she went to the hospital on Viale Alfieri for treatment, “the doctor of reference was Chiara Innocenti, who discovered this type of disease, I also want to thank her for everything she did”.
