The Annastaccatolisa association was founded in December 2011 by
Oltreilcancro.it and by the family and friends of Anna Lisa Russo, a young woman who died in October 2011 in the palliative care ward of the hospital of Livorno, Italy. The association focuses on triple negative breast cancer prevention, research and treatment.
Annastaccatolisa is the nickname that Anna Lisa had chosen to talk about herself and about her long fight with “the beast” (as she referred to the breast cancer she was diagnosed with in 2008, at the age of 30) through the blog Ho il cancro. Il blog di una malata coccolata, viziata, amata e fortunata, an on-line diary which soon became an example of courage and a call for solidarity, moving its readers and involving thousands of people.
Anna Lisa never lost hope and love for life, not even in the worst moments when the cancer, after a short break, came back: “I took and I’m still taking a lot of medicines. Despite that, I know that I will never heal. There is no cure, there are no therapies for my cancer. The only thing I can hope for is the disease to become chronic, in order for me to be able to live with it. And that’s why I continue to fight, continue to share my experiences and continue to tell about my disease on my blog.”
There are no therapies for my cancer:we never ever want to hear these words again.
Anna Lisa would have never wanted to write these words, sure as she was that there is always a new road to discover and that clinical research can always make steps forward, thanks also to the solidarity gestures that everybody can do to support it.
It must be possible to treat and to heal every kind of cancer.
With the Annastaccatolisa association we would like to give a meaning to the big emotion flow caused by the story of this young woman and to help, where possible, to transform these emotions into a project she would have supported: a fundraising to initiate scholarships and to fund research projects dedicated to triple negative breast cancers, a category of tumors for which, as Anna Lisa story unfortunately proved, there are no targeted and effective treatments yet.