thousand life

• Photographer
  Violetta Canitano, Italy

Marsha fights every day her personal battle against Thalassemia
Major, a type of anemia that requires a continuous transfusions.
Marsha is 43 years old and until now she has received a thousand
blood bags.
Marsha is an Italian-American woman, a native of Calabria. She
perform as a comedienne, founding “The Rome Comedy Club” the
first english cabaret in Rome. Every fifteen days in her life, a phone
call arrives on time, a code, few words than the transfusion to survive.
Thalassemia Major: an hereditary disease caused by a gene mutation,
the more widespread disease in the world, located in the
Mediterranean basin and in Southeast Asia and affects about 8,5% of
the world population. Thalassemia Major is the most severe form of
beta thalassemia in which the complete lack of beta protein in the
hemoglobin causes life-threatening anemia, that requires regular blood
transfusions and frequent checks. Blood transfusions for life lead to
iron