Last updated on 1 April 2026
It truly is a dark beast; it hides everywhere and attacks suddenly. Before you even realize it, you start having a slight fever, a mild headache, some joint pain… and that’s it—or rather, you’re finished!
In November (November 26, 2020), I had blood tests done, which showed a good response to tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy.
As always, during the visit, the doctor showed me the continuous decline of that curve on the graph.
A good sign; the leukemia seemed to be under control, at least that is what the doctor told me.
On that occasion, the doctor scheduled a new appointment for routine blood tests, another Bone Marrow Biopsy (BMB), and a follow-up visit for January 5, 2021.
At that time, people were starting to talk about the Covid vaccine, and given my illness, I was at the top of the list to benefit from this controversial weapon against the virus.
Life-saver or life-threat?
The information was conflicting, but “official” news gave good prospects; early results indicated that the vaccine worked.
My first vaccination was scheduled for January 11, 2021.
During that period, the news on the radio, television, and internet spoke continuously about Covid, mutations, and the various strains of the virus.
Initially, variants were defined by letters of the Greek alphabet.
I heard about the Alpha and Beta variants before becoming infected; for the others, I did some “research” after the fact.
Towards the end of the year, talk began about the English variant (named N501Y); reports said it was more virulent than other variants discovered so far, but in Switzerland at that time, no cases of this infection had yet been recorded.
Immediately after Christmas—roughly from December 26, 2020, onwards—the N501Y variant was identified across practically the entire English territory thanks to routine sampling and genomic testing carried out in various parts of the United Kingdom.
It was hypothesized that this variant was capable of causing more severe illness compared to other variants circulating before its appearance.
In particular, based on some preliminary analyses conducted in the United Kingdom, it was hypothesized that this variant could be associated with an increased risk of hospitalization and a severe course of the pathology compared to infection caused by the non-mutated virus.
However, to confirm this hypothesis, it was necessary to conduct further studies.
Who would have ever thought that I would be one of the first in Switzerland to be infected with this variant—especially me, who had no contact outside of my wife, my children, and my mother-in-law.
I hadn’t seen my parents for months and had no contact with them except by telephone.
On January 1, 2021, we spoke to exchange New Year’s greetings, and on that occasion, we decided to meet on Sunday, January 3, for a family lunch.
I was happy because my son was also coming; we could all see each other again after a long time.
Aaron had in fact just started his university studies at the ETH Zurich (Faculty of Computer Science), but due to the virus, a large part of the lessons were still held remotely, and consequently, he had returned to Ticino for the Christmas holidays.
The Christmas holidays for our family were a time of gathering and conviviality; not being able to find ourselves sitting at a table to spend the holidays with joy and serenity was true suffering, but that was the situation and the rules did not allow for gathering in large groups.
In fact, family tradition dictates that Christmas Eve dinner is at Floriana’s, Mirna’s sister; Christmas Day (lunch and dinner) is spent at my brother-in-law Maurizio’s and my sister-in-law Cristina’s, while Boxing Day is celebrated at my house.
Tradition also defines the menus: Christmas Eve dinner features fondue chinoise; Christmas Day lunch and dinner include appetizers with cold cuts and cheeses, roast and rabbit prepared in the style of Grandfather Oliviero (my wife’s father); and on Boxing Day, appetizers with cold cuts, mixed boiled meats, tortellini in broth, and of course panettoni, Christmas sweets, and seasonal fruit.
In short, it was quite a commitment, not only to cook but also to taste all those delicacies.
To the lunch at my parents’ house, we would also bring Kila, our new entry, a Labrador puppy I had gotten so as not to shut myself away too much at home and to maintain a minimum of physical activity during that bad period.
It worked; every day, weather permitting, I went out for a walk with Kila, and there I began a little training with the first commands (sit, heel…) and the recall.
By January, she was 5 months old and starting to behave like a well-mannered dog, although I still had to take her out often for her needs.
Mirna and Cristina went all the way to Vicenza to pick her up because, being on sick leave, I could not face such a long journey.
On Sunday, January 3, we left early (around 10:00 AM); before lunch, we wanted to take a walk with Kila so she could do her business and avoid making a mess in my parents’ house.
My mother and father lived in a second-floor apartment in a small village near the border, Vacallo.
They lived near the school where I had worked until a few months prior.
Before the pandemic and the illness, I went to lunch with them every weekday; they were happy to see me and I was happy to eat the delicious delicacies my mother prepared for me, and she often gave me “leftovers” or other dishes to take home for dinner.
My mother was an excellent cook, appreciated by all of us, and particularly by my father who often told her: “… I got it all wrong, I should have opened a restaurant or a Grotto; with you, we would have certainly had great success.” He would say it to her in Ticinese dialect; at home with them, we mainly spoke dialect.
After the walk with Kila, we went up to the grandparents’ house; upon entering, you could already smell the intoxicating aromas of the food.
The menu included a nice aperitif with many snacks followed by raclette.
But first, we had to admire the famous nativity scene that my mother set up every year and of which my father was very proud.
Every year on my mother’s birthday (born November 17, 1943), we would give her a figurine or a piece to expand her representation of Christmas.
At that time, my mother was seventy-seven years old and my father would turn eighty in June (he was born on June 2, 1941).
They were two quiet retirees, happy with their peaceful life and their routines.
They had a few aches and pains due to age, but overall they were well.
My father had just passed the medical exam for his driver’s license and, with my help, had purchased his new car.
He was very proud and happy with his purchase.
My mother and father were happy to see us again and to meet Kila.
We greeted each other as was done in those days, elbow to elbow, without kisses or hugs; it saddened us, but the rules were clear and we did not intend to break them.
We started immediately with the aperitif; we tasted a couple of glasses of excellent dry sparkling white wine chosen by my father and several delicious snacks prepared by my mother.
Kila was restless; she was not used to apartments without a garden, or perhaps I did not yet understand when she needed to go out to relieve herself.
I decided to take her out again so that I could have lunch afterward without being disturbed during the meal.
Raclette, cheese melted under an electric grill.
A delight and a food that allows for conviviality, everyone at the table without my mother having to shut herself away in the kitchen.
Each of us would take a piece of cheese and a couple of boiled potatoes with our hands and put them on our plate to then cook them to our liking.
Many like the cheese just melted, while others like it well-cooked with a nice golden crust.
At that moment we weren’t thinking about the virus; we were all well, and we hadn’t considered that the mere act of touching the food with our hands could have infected us.
Unfortunately, yes, we had “touched” the snacks, the cheese, the potatoes, the sweets, the fruit.
And before us, my mother had handled them during preparation and presentation.
At that moment we were not aware of the danger; we were happy to have reunited, we were all well.
That day, no one had shown any symptoms attributable to Covid.
During lunch, my mother told me that my sister had not been well in the preceding days and that she had not taken a test to identify Covid.
In any case, I had not met her that day and, given my health issue, I would not have gone to visit her, even though she lived just a few steps from my parents.
I was convinced that my parents had not met my sister given the pandemic situation; instead, I only learned the following day that she had been to my mother’s on December 31 to wish her well and to bring her some groceries.
She had contact with my parents even though she knew she was not well and that we were in the middle of a pandemic.
That day we did not stay long; Kila was still small and wanted to go out to walk and play.
In the afternoon, we headed home happy and satisfied with the day spent with family; in those months the days are short, and so we arrived home in the dark even though it was a beautiful cloudless day.