Viernes 8 de julio de 2006
MLife
was generous with Margarita Lalor Cavanagh, even though she
appreciated it when it was a little late for some things, as she
has recognized on her autobiography “Se puede” (It is possible).
She was born on a family that didn’t have economic problems, she
had four siblings, who she adored; she had traveled almost
around the whole word and she was, very, very pretty.
She had 20 years old when
she looked at herself on the mirror and sorted out that she
needed to lose 17 kilos (35 pounds).
That was the beginning of her other story. “An ordinary story”,
as she wrote later on her own book, published on October of
1998, where she described without bitterness or regrets every
single detail on her personal tragedy. She had tried every kind
of diets and regimes with some fair results… “Until I met an
endocrinologist, a specialist in obesity, he taught me how to
eat and made me lose 14 kilos (30 pounds). But I still needed to
lose other 17 in order to reach “the perfect body”. She would
confess on the pages of her book, where you can perceive her
unbreakable force of spirit.
“I asked, even begged and
finally convinced him: I wanted to try a diet based only on
liquids. I stayed for 15 days inside a clinic where I only had
tea, coffee and “mate”
That is how she reached
the skinny figure she desired, however, her immunological system
ended up “destroyed” forever. Her physical dexterousness became
inexorable, and along with time, evident. Two months after
finishing that brutal diet she had to be hospitalized so that
doctors could remove a cyst from her. Then she started losing
her speak, her strength, and the movement of her extremities.
After a year of erratic diagnostics and unfruitful treatments,
doctors discovered she suffered from a progresive, neuromuscular
and terminal disease: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). She
only had some months of life. Even under those circumstances and
prognostic, Margarita decided she would fight for her recovery.
She simply wanted to live.
That way, on a wheelchair
and with almost her complete body paralyzed, she decided to
study art, and English translation, using a text processor with
her left foot- ten words per minute for along twelve hours- she
managed to write her testimony about the terrible sequels that
dismorfophobia can provoke, a disease that people who tend to
see themselves differently to which they actually are, generally
suffer.
She passed away last 9th
of June, short before her 59th birthday. People who knew her
remember her for her generous public work and religious
convictions. Today, at 7 pm, in “Nuestra Señora Del Socorro”
Basilic there will be a Mass on her memory.
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