BRAND
Quizs in a case like that of Virginia the covid may seem the least, but he has also had to suffer it. “These are things that happen. Better to have happened already … I get rid of it,” he assumes with some resignation. Torrecilla was part of the large group of positives who lamented the female Atltico days before contesting the quarterfinals of the Champions, with the difference that his did not transcend. Overall: I wasn’t going to play either. The red-and-white soccer player’s game is for life and a tumor located in the deep part of the cerebellum, next to the pineal gland, has been her unexpected rival since May.
It was, indeed, in full confinement. “It is true that my neck has always hurt, because I am bad and others, but I was fine until I began to notice a very strong tension in my head when running on a treadmill that we had. I got worried and told our I didn’t know what was wrong with me, because I could do mobility, push-ups and others, but I couldn’t run or jump. He told me that he wanted to do a CT scan, he did it … and he found a tumor on my head, “recalls the soccer player. in his conversation with Primera Plana. “I was completely taken by surprise. I never would have thought about it. When they told me I was in shock, I didn’t know what to do or how to act. I remember the doctor saying: ‘Cry, Virginia.’ And I: ‘No, I can’t cry I want to know what to do, how do I tell my parents … ‘ It was my first reaction, because in the end it is complicated. A 25 year old girl, living far away, I will not cheat … it was very hard. That inside the bad everything is going well, but communicating it to my parents was the most complicated of all. “
With other people he even resorted to the white lie in the form of knee surgery: “I had to deceive my sister and my coughs. She was pregnant and I still didn’t know what was going to happen and how it was going to turn out. If I told her that they operated on my head for a brain tumor, I would have done a lot of damage with the baby. It was one thing we could avoid to tell when I was well. “Virginia’s nephew was born in August, by the way:” Oh, Leo … My parents are like crazy with their first grandchild and I think she has arrived at the I drool, I could just stare at it without doing anything for hours. It’s unbelievable, but it’s true. “
The diagnosis was known on the 14th and on the 18th she was undergoing an emergency operation in the neurosurgery service of the University Clinic of Navarra. Enter a date and another, the red and white logistics. “The first order was that we spare no expense and that Virginia and her family did not lack anything,” says a source from the female Attic in reference to the higher authorities of the entity. “It was all very complicated, but The club has been very good to me and I only have words of thanks. They put a car for me to go to Pamplona, they took my parents tickets for the next day, they paid for the hotels … everything, everything. I am in very good hands, and that’s also thanks to me being in such a big club. There really are no words for what they have done for me. I mean it, “Virginia insists.
She chose the way to tell it, still from the hospital but once the tumor was removed. “I believe that I am a public figure and that I can help other people. This has been the case: many people have written to tell me their story. They are people who continue to fight and for me it is incredible. I can teach, but I can also learn: for me. that’s the most beautiful thing of all. ” The ball was still in play, unfortunately. Woody Allen said that the two most beautiful words in a language are not “I love you!” but “it’s benign!”, but Virginia didn’t listen to them. It was evil. “I lived in ignorance. They had told me that in three or four months I would be recovered, but when I go back to the hospital and they tell me that I have to talk to the oncloga I don’t like a hair. I already felt that something was wrong. I go in, sit down and he says to me: ‘Virginia, your tumor is not good, although it is not the worst either. You’re going to lose this, this, this and this … maybe you can’t be a mother or go back to playing soccer professionally. You’re going to do radio and chemo. ‘ Imagine all that for me. He told me things as they are and I had to assimilate it for two or three days. But when I came back and they did the tests they had to do, everything turned out very well … and it was already different. “
By then, some tributes followed that still overwhelm her: messages from Fernando Torres, Borja Iglesia and many others through the networks, Diego Costa showing the Virginia shirt after the first goal of Atltico ‘post-confinement’, rivals who remembered her continually, his own teammates and the Barcelona players before that decisive Champions League game … “All those little details are incredible. We have also seen it with the case of Carla Surez, who unfortunately is experiencing something similar. It is the most beautiful thing in sport, that there are no colors, genres or anything. To turn to a person who has to fight and who needs the strength of many people“.
Proton therapy is the most precise external radiation therapy that can be offered today, protecting critical parts of the central nervous system and minimizing the risk of second tumors: “I stayed for a month and two weeks from Monday to Friday. After that they gave me a vacation. to disconnect and charge batteries “. By then Virginia, who used to be characterized by the length of her hair, had already seen the side effects of training. Although she also received help there: “Miguel ngel Muoz, who was our goalkeeping coach, had been a hairdresser before. In fact, her wife still is. I told him I wanted to shave, because he saw that my hair was falling out a lot. He replied that he could do something to me to see if I liked it and that if not, I would shave. I liked it. They have cared a lot for me and they did a very good job with what little he had. “The rest granted by the doctors, to all this, served so that ten years later he could celebrate his birthday at home. In Cala Millor. In Mallorca. On the 4th of this month, little before returning to Madrid. “Leaving so young and starting the leagues in September, I always had to be doing preseason with the teams.” It was Virginia’s 26th anniversary.
And it is that everything has gone very fast in Torrecilla’s life. Collerense, Sporting de Palma, Barcelona, Montpellier and Atltico. Selection, Euros and World Cups. “Too fast, maybe. Until something like this happens to you, you don’t realize how life passes. Because If this disease has taught me something, it is not to think about tomorrow, because you never know what will happen. Life is the now, the moment … enjoy it. It is what we have to do. Take advantage of everything we live“In that sense she is starkly sincere: she has feared for her life.” Yes, it would be a lie if she said no. It is not that I have feared, but that I fear. I’m positive and I know I’m going to get out of this, but there are low moments when I’m at home and I think ‘what if I don’t hold on?’ Throw in more good than all that, but obviously I have them. It is learning and little by little you have to move forward. Not only me, but all the people who suffer from this disease, “he explains.
This Monday begins the new phase of your treatment. Chemotherapy But he faces it from what has undoubtedly been great news: “AYer I was in the hospital and the doctor told me that everything is going very well, better than I expected. That they had studied the tumor exactly, that they were going to change my treatment, from the seven planned cycles to only three, and that in February I could be leading a normal life“. In time to participate in the season yet to begin, as was his desire.” I hope and wish it. If she could be with the team, even if it were on the bench, for me it would be incredible. “Luisa Snchez, her oncloga, has already launched a warning just in case. And with her the rest of the doctors and nurses who have been accompanying her in the process: “They say they will be there the day I play the first game … and they will need tickets.” The female Atltico’s doctor is Javier Nez, for the record also. Always by Virginia’s side.
The protagonist of this story already said that life is now, but it is impossible to completely escape the future. “I focus on the present, but I think a lot about how my debut with Atltico will be. There is no night that I don’t dream of going back to the grass, even for a minute, and touching the ball. Feeling that “Now I start to study Sports Management, because I would like to get into something related to football,” he adds. Perhaps in case it could not be said tomorrow what can be said today, Virginia is being especially vindictive through the networks in the fight for equality. If you have to answer, you answer: “I don’t think I said anything bad. At all times I wanted to show that we play football and that we do not compare ourselves to anyone. All we want is to be ourselves. People who want to be, well, and those who do not want to be who are not, but do not hurt. Nothing more and nothing less than that. Curiously, all those who criticize me have made me gain many followers. I still have to thank you … “
Silvia Meseguer, teammate in the Atltico and in the national team, deserves a separate paragraph. “I cannot speak ill of any companion, because they have all turned upside down, but the ‘Mesi’ thing has been very special. She has been at all times, if she has to sleep with me, she sleeps with me, my parents love her like a daughter … she is the pillar of everything I am living. He has made efforts to make her comfortable and to be the same as before. She tells me not now, but that when she is finished with the treatment she will give me a lot of fear. That I go running with her and she will make me vomit. The most beautiful thing is knowing that I have many people around who love me. “
Torrecilla already lives in Alcal, where the rojiblanco team trains and plays, but the club has also chosen to change her apartment so that she is closer to all those colleagues in case she had any need. “In the Atltico you will have your home for life“, is pointed from the offices.
And Virginia, at the conclusion of the talk, still launches a common wish, but for which she has even more reasons than the others:
“I’m looking forward to the end of 2020, mother ma what ao … what ao!”
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