Overcoming Fear and Embracing Family: Tiziana Panella's Harrowing Journey

"I carry with me the devastating fear of those days." Tiziana Panella, the host of Tagadà, a program broadcast daily on La7, recalled the moments of terror experienced when her partner, Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, fell into a coma last December following a sudden illness. The political scientist, after days in intensive care, managed to survive the delicate operation he underwent for the dissection of the aorta. In an interview with Corriere, the journalist remembered the difficult days when her partner was in a coma. "I breathed a sigh of relief when he squeezed my hand and I realized he could hear me. But I truly breathed only when he was out of intensive care." The professor is now doing better, alive by a miracle. It was December 27 when the ordeal began. Tiziana Panella returns to Tagadà: "I stood by my life partner in an extremely difficult battle." "Vittorio and I were supposed to leave the next day, go somewhere warm for the holidays. He was in Cortina for the presentation of his book. And he called me saying he was feeling ill. Then, on the morning of the 28th, news came of the helicopter transport to Treviso for the operation. I rushed over from Rome, and when I arrived, he was in the operating room." Thus, the journalist and TV host recalled those moments of fear, difficult to forget. She found herself spending day and night in intensive care, alongside her partner: his ex-wife and daughters were also there. "I had no relationship with them before, but the knowledge and love for him made us become a united family. Each with their own pain," she revealed. "I wrote to him every evening, a brief diary of the day, via WhatsApp. I still carry with me the devastating fear, at night I check that he breathes well." Meeting Parsi Parsi and she met on television: "The war in Ukraine two years ago was what brought us together. He was very often my guest and we started to communicate... then slowly, commuters of love: he in Milan, I in Rome. He gave me the ability to be happy. Now at night I check that he breathes well." Journalist of La7, in her past there was a passion for dance, which she then had to give up due to physical issues: "I'm too tall. I have a Mediterranean physique that never helped. But being stubborn, I loved classical dance so much that I worked on my body to force it to be compatible. Dance is discipline in everything: schedules, clothing, hair. If you were not perfect they would throw you out. It was the place where I felt best and I liked asking my body for a sacrifice. A goal towards perfection. A self-discipline that I had to stop at 21 years because I had subjected my body to incredible stress. I had to choose and stop." The worst days The painful experience of her partner's illness began last December 27. Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, professor and political scientist, 62 years old, had a sudden illness while speaking on stage in Cortina. Operated on the heart, he ended up in intensive care. In mid-January, he himself announced that he was feeling better. Subsequently, he continued with rehabilitation. And summarizing the phases of his illness, he declared himself a survivor and to be alive "thanks to Tiziana's face." "I felt three hits on the diaphragm, like I was in apnea. As a diver, you know that when you feel them you must resurface, it's the last warning. I realized something serious was happening. After the conference, I asked for a doctor to be called. The ambulance arrived." "I remember the entire period in a coma," Parsi recounted. "A muddy, black river that was under my feet, like Ulysses and Achilles. I think it was the Hades. The river where dead souls stay. I saw no light, no hope other than that of fighting to live. Perhaps when you die the sensation is that of an embrace. Death we live as terrifying, I have never had great sympathy for it, I do not harbor expectations about what will come after. However, what surprised me is that I was not afraid. My thoughts went to Tiziana and her daughters. "I saw her face, I wanted to see it again. I spoke with my mother and my father, who are no longer here: 'Give me a hand, it's not time to join you.' I opened my eyes. And I saw Tiziana who was there with me."