Marcelo Polino (59) went to visit his dear friend Antonio Gasalla (82) before going to Mar del Plata to do a season in the show Fatima Florez (42) and is very sad about the comedian’s health. “He no longer recognizes anyone and doesn’t remember that he was an actor,” she explained on his cell phone THEY (America, at age 20), the cycle he leads Angelo De Brito (47).
A few minutes before entering the Roxy theater in Mar del Plata, where he shares the stage with Fátima, Polino explained in THEY: “I wanted to hug Antonio before coming to Mar del Plata. And I met an Antonio whose pathology is going faster and faster.”
“Within about a month, his cognitive deterioration was very severe,” he added. He doesn’t know me anymore, he doesn’t know his brother, he doesn’t know he was an actor…“.
In this sad healthcare panorama, Gasalla has great help, as Polino explained. “It’s with a team of doctors and family who are there every day.”
“He also has a notebook in which we make him write names and dates, so that he doesn’t lose his writing. But this is already costing him a lot… I left there with great sadness, with great pain. “He explained, sad.
“I console myself with the thought that it is well cared for,” she said. And Ángel De Brito reflected: “All of us who have worked for many years knew Antonio and He was such a brilliant mind, such a unique mind in this environment…“”How is your brain playing these tricks on you!” complained the driver THEY.
Marcelo Polino, on Gasalla: “He didn’t know me anymore”. Capture TV.“Doctors say that for the elderly it is important to stimulate cognition before it deteriorates,” commented speaker Maite Peñoñori.
“I became friends with Antonio because of his intelligence, his laugh, his humor. -said Marcelo Polino-. We, For fifteen years we spoke every day on the phone. We laughed out loud watching TV, him at his house and me at my house. We said atrocious things about people and laughed….”
“And when I went to his house we wrote,” he recalled. “And now, seeing that he has a pen and asking ‘Is it with a Z or is it with an S?’ It’s something I can’t believe.”
Polino, on Gasalla: “He has no idea where he is”
De Brito underlined that what strikes him most about Gasalla’s current situation is not that he doesn’t remember names but “that he doesn’t remember his very essence, which is that of being an actor”.
Marcelo Polino added: “When I brought him the Martín Fierro award (for lifetime achievement, which Susana Giménez went to receive on behalf of Gasalla), we showed him the video of the Martín Fierro award, but he didn’t recognize that it was the Martín award rewards Fierro. On the other hand, when he saw an image of Mirtha (Legrand) and one of Susana (Giménez), he recognized them and a tear fell.”
Polino said that Gasalla does exercises in a notebook to keep up with his writing, but it is very difficult for him. He captures the TV.“But it was a very vague recognition. He thought it could be a party, a birthday… He didn’t associate himself with Martín Fierro… But now not even that anymore,” Polino was sad.
“But does he express himself, does he speak?” De Brito wanted to know. “Yes, he talks, but he has no idea about space. He asks you: ‘Do you want to drink something?’ The other time I went I told him that some plants were very beautiful and he told me that if I liked them I should take them… Evidently he has no idea where they are.”
Source: Clarin
