Miriam Ruiz’s book about cancer

The journalist Miriam Ruiz publish Murderous bodies. Getting sick in the era of well-being (KO Books), a work in which she combines (a lot of) personal reflection and (some) critical insight when recounting her fight against breast cancer and the fears, questions and medical tests she underwent since February 5, 2021.

“I hope my daughters’ generation does not talk about cancer with the fear that this word carries so much weight and the fear of naming it is lost. With breast cancer we are achieving it,” says the author in an extensive interview with Europa Press.

The author remembers that editing Murderous Bodies It took her four years, a period that she recounts in an “honest and realistic way” to convey to the reader what it was like for her to face cancer. Although it is based on an intimate experience, the book “speaks about many people,” as Miriam Ruiz assures, who regrets that cancer is a “very universal” story. “It is a story that has happened to me, but unfortunately it is very universal, so it can speak to many people, and above all about many people,” he commented.

“When I was diagnosed I went through a initial shockbut then I felt the need to write to try to make sense of what was happening to me,” the author explained. Initially they were personal notes that over time took shape until they became a book. “The first desire to start writing is totally selfish to try to organize a little the feelings and thoughts that overwhelm you, surpass you and that you cannot even put into words,” she admits.

He received his diagnosis in 2021in the midst of the covid de-escalation, a context that conditioned anyone, but especially those who suffered from an illness. “We lived through that horror movie and then I entered my own movie. Just at the moment when it seemed like we were all going to leave,” he recalls.

“Cancer treatment is a long-distance race. In all those months I couldn’t meet up with friends and family, I had to be very careful, always wearing a mask. I couldn’t have human contact with the people who could have accompanied me at that moment for fear of catching something and burdening them with the responsibility of something happening to me,” he explains.

The book combines her own fragments with texts from family and friends, including WhatsApp messages written during chemotherapy so, as she says, “that the passage of time would not change the discourse of the moment.”

“Hearing about cancer is special because both sides of the coin coexist at the same time: those who are cured and those who are not. I am 63 years old and at my age it is possible to contemplate that at some point you could be diagnosed with this disease, but it never crosses your mind that it is your daughter. It is a blow. A huge, black cloud that settles over you and does not even let you breathe. The fear is terrifying and the pain cannot be described,” writes Miriam Ruiz’s mother.

Territorial inequalities and precariousness for health workers

In her pages, the writer also reflects the inequality that exists in access to health treatments and resources in Spain. “Within the country there are great variations depending on the autonomous communities and provinces,” he insists. The author cites an OECD report that pointed out “large variations” in oncological results and treatments between autonomous communities and provinces.

“I have been lucky enough to be in Madrid, which is leading in universities and hospitals, but there are patients who have to move between weeks to receive radiotherapy,” explained Ruiz, who remembers the case of the reservoir for chemotherapy in the arm and not in the chest, available only in a few centers. “All of these are advances that do not reach the entire country equally,” he laments.

Likewise, it highlights the job insecurity of health personnelwhich would allow professionals to have more time for patients. In this regard, she indicates that there are times, especially at the beginning of a diagnosis, when patients need more information than what professionals provide, although Miriam Ruiz understands the “precarious” work situation they are going through.

“Suddenly, they talk to you about medical terms that you don’t know and a world totally foreign to you opens up. But they are the result of their work situation and they have the time they have. There are many moments where patients need more information,” he says.

Along the same lines, she remembers that she was asked to participate in a clinical triala moment in which she lacked more empathy from the doctors, despite highlighting their professionalism, especially her faithful advisor Amparo, an oncological psychologist who helped her throughout the process via WhatsApp.

“At that moment, I was absolutely overwhelmed and I was like ‘but what are they telling me’?” she jokes. Despite the initial confusion, he agreed to a clinical trial because, as he says in the interview and repeats several times in the book, “the sicker we are now, the healthier we will be in the future.”

“The most important thing is in the hands of the patient”

During the interview, Ruiz shows special concern about the “setbacks” in prevention and early detection of any type of cancer, especially breast cancer. An issue that has gained special notoriety after the controversy surrounding cancer screening programs in Andalusia.

“What we have seen in Andalusia is a setback because we have already made that progress. We have those early detection tests and if that begins to fail, what was a curable pathology can become metastasis. And for that there is still a long way to go,” he laments.

In murderous bodies It is reflected that chance, in this type of illness – and in life in general – plays a very prominent role, despite the fact that it also affects the risk factorssuch as alcohol, tobacco or lack of sport, among many others. “That part of chance is because we still don’t have answers, neither research nor science have them,” confesses Ruiz, who recognizes that patients want to do everything in their power because “the most important thing is not in the hands of the patient.”

The author questions the weight given to personal responsibility in the field of health and well-being. “There is talk about lifestyle, eating or exercise habits, but it is rarely addressed why there are products that are known to be harmful and are still on the market. Let’s not even talk about pollution or the environment,” he denounces. For Ruiz, Focusing the debate only on the individual is ignoring the structural conditions that surround the disease..

Along these lines, he calls for more investment in prevention and research. “The urgency of cancer is so great that it leaves no room for anything else, and the urgency is that people do not die. Therefore, in the prevention part we are very limited,” he says. However, he warns that without a stable commitment to science, society will continue to act on the symptoms and not on the causes.

“In the end, what is truly important does not depend on oneself,” says Ruiz. “You can do everything in your power, but the essential things are decided in the offices where public policies are set and the health budget is distributed. Hopefully no one will ever need it, but we better take care of health, because when it’s your turn, you are in their hands.”