Luciano Xavier tells what it was like to be face to face with death: “I lived the horror”

Since 2021, actor Luciano Xavier has been battling the consequences of COVID-19, the disease that nearly killed him last year. In an exclusive interview with O Globo newspaper, he talked about how he went through three hospital trips, and major surgeries, to be “face to face with death,” as he defined it, and the lessons he learned from it.

“Sometimes I would die face to face. The worst happened during the first hospital treatment. After the operation, I was in the ICU, it was two in the morning, I took my medicine, said good night everyone and fell asleep. I opened my eyes, there were four doctors around me. I woke up with ridiculous chest pain ‘,” recalls the actor, whose heartbeat reached 2020 (normal range 70) before stopping completely.

“I heard this constant sound of the machine, the same sound we hear in movies when a character dies. I just thought that at any moment the lights would go out. I was so conscious, I almost broke the doctor’s hand from pressing it so hard. It was the worst ten seconds of my life. Nothingness The machine started counting the beats again, until it stopped at 80. My heart stopped. It feels like jumping off a cliff without a parachute,” he identifies.

He adds, “I ended up being so traumatized by the hospital and staying in the hospital. The whole time, since entering the hospital, I was afraid of dying. Every ten minutes, I didn’t know if I was going to live another ten minutes,” he adds.

Luciano was last hospitalized last weekend with a blocked bowel. Due to complications from Covid, the actor underwent the insertion of a colostomy bag after perforation of the intestinal loop. The newspaper said he has since been laid off and is in good health.

Always in good health, as he noted, the actor has almost never set foot in the hospital, a routine that has completely changed since last year. The ambassador faced many difficulties, such as having to swallow a probe the size of a milk straw. He said, “I spent a week with this tube, not eating properly, not sleeping, it was desperate. And this needed to be done to empty the handles and get the organ to function normally again. It was painful, hard and very difficult.” Doctor.. the globe.

The actor, who said he “lived the horror”, added, “I’ve been through everything I’ve been through, if someone told me, I would laugh. It’s awful you can’t breathe, you can’t eat, you keep feeding through a tube” due to the disease.

Currently recuperating in his home in the interior of São Paulo, with his family, Luciano Xavier maintains a diet of vegetable soup and eventually manages to eat small portions of fish and chicken. “Unfortunately, I still can’t eat lasagna, I would like to,” he jokes.

Until then, the actor has already set goals for a new life in which his family and health are irreversible priorities. “I will continue to get up early, say my prayers, meditate, and plan to take my children to school every day. After that I will take care of my health whether through physical therapy, gymnastics or weight training. Work meetings or recordings will be from 11 am only, and I will definitely stop at 7 pm I will turn 54, I have worked a lot, and I have the right to organize my life to participate more actively with my family. I have always been very present, but now I will put the start time and end time to work. Of course there will be exceptions, but in general I will have this course”, as he says.

“I’ve learned that life is too short. I’m talking to you now, but I may not be on this plane in two hours. So I want to make the most of it with the people I love, say ‘no’ without fearing what people will think of me. I think that This was the big change that happened to me: I stopped caring more about others and started caring more about myself and my family.”