Palliative care doctor Mel Romboli and her exciting novel, ‘Life Before Death’.

There are three works, right now, that have orbited around me in recent months and that seem to me to share a very similar tone. One of them is Surviving prejudice by Adriana Florez, a novel that I hope to talk to you about soon. another is My red October by Leonor Pérez de Vega, a sincere work about chronic pain. and the last one is Life before death of Mel Rombolia fictional novel about a palliative care doctor and her experiences.

I think we like plots that revolve around hospitals, medicine, health, life and death. That is why medical romance novels triumph, or why we consume so many self-help books that tell us about habits that can positively influence our health. In fact, Sonia Henry just published Anesthetized with Malpaso y cía where it deals with the roller coaster that the resident doctors. And all this seems to me to be contemplated in Life before death by Mel Romboli. It seemed to me to be one of the most complete and special novels of this last year.

The truth is that I started reading it without really knowing what I was going to find. I had read very diverse opinions about the story and some discrepancies. I think that readers with Life before death Something has happened to them that I have also been tempted to fall into and that is choosing which part of the novel they like the most: the doctor’s experiences that appears in it (her daily life, her story with her son, her experiences as a migrant doctor) or stories about patients who are on the verge of death. Of course, we want more of one thing than another, of course, and this is a matter of personal taste, but I actually find the mix of both very attractive. Because? Because and Life before death If it were just a compendium of stories about farewells and the last minutes of life, it would acquire an intensity and a tone that is, however, tempered thanks to the fact that the common thread of all this is a protagonist, a single mother, human, made of flesh and blood. , with his own personal problems in addition to those of his patients. And here is one of the strong points of the story: in Life before death Doctors are human beings (in case anyone doubted this) and in addition to saving lives, they also often have to save their own.

Mel Romboli handles writing very well and I think it is a very empathetic author. It seems that she is talking about herself because she shares a profession, also the specialty of palliative care, with the protagonist, as well as some other characteristics, but she has already confessed to us that it is a work of fiction (with some more biographical points, but without pretense of biography ).

The first thing we noticed in Life before death the thing is The work overload that doctors have is very high. As well as dealing with very diverse situations and with a very strong emotional burden. They have their own story and Mel Romboli gives it to them. The second thing we perceive is that there is a strong criticism also towards the prejudices that exist towards foreign doctors. We experience it first-hand at work and can put ourselves in their own shoes. The third is something much deeper and more powerful: talk about what we don’t talk about, death.

Ugh, Mel Romboli’s novel gives you a good romp. There are very emotional and exciting scenes. Magical things that happen at the end of this stage we call life. Beautiful farewells. Needs that have to be covered in those last minutes. Stories, memories and a lot of love. I think the author wants to highlight in Life Before Death love. In the end only he is left. And I like this vision. It is what I hold in Heal my heartwhich also talks about hospitals and struggles.

Con Life before death I have learned, but above all I have wanted more. Few (self-contained) books have given me the feeling of wanting to read more of it. I feel like putting pressure on Mel Romboli to write a second part and continue telling us how he continues to experience these situations of goodbyes and restarts. I also want him to continue talking to me, as he does in the book, about those things that have to be read between the lines. As the girl who doesn’t really fight against death, but against her own vulnerability. Those metaphors are beautiful! And what’s more: they are not metaphors. Mel Romboli confesses to you between the pages that he believes that There is something else, something you don’t know what it’s called.but that involves us all. Something that defines the destiny of one or another, that makes some patients recover and others leave. Something that is within oneself. Mel perceives… and allows you to perceive too. Life before death It opens a door to another place.

If I had to choose, it is true that I would choose the part about the patients’ experiences because I am very tearful, but I still think that our protagonist’s daily life is necessary to put order in the story and go down to the mundaneas well as knowing the medical system that surrounds these intense situations. The goodbyes that we experience in Romboli’s book are not possible without a hospital bed. Without public health. If some professionals leave their skin in it. And she, with great success, narrates them as well.

Life before death of Mel Romboli It has been a great discovery. It surprised me for the better and I learned, laughed and cried with this story. It has two very different parts that, however, are necessary for each other: the one that narrates the last moments of patients in palliative care and the one that tells us the life of a foreign doctor, a single mother, who works in said specialty. It is a story that has provoked a need to know more about this entire world and that has opened a door to the mystery of death and life and, between the two, love.