Elena and Vizo have overcome cancer together.MARCOS MÍGUEZ
Elena and Vizo, the most viral Galician couple: "Leukemia taught us that together we are invincible"
Elena and Vizo faced the worst blow in full pandemic when they were looking for a child. How far would you be able to go for love?
Ana Abelenda
She is a florist and spent the pandemic cultivating and watching the forest of great affections that surround her flourish. Elena Naveiras, 33, who was a nurse before being a floral artist and the most viral Galician bride of 2020, has lived these couple of years of covid on the warpath, but not against the virus, but rather "squashing a giant monster" that It made his gums bleed, bruises on his legs, and ate his strength on a day-to-day basis. That monster has a name that she says without fear, leukemia, and she faces a team of rivals that are close together, in which Vizo, her husband, "maridi" stands out, as she calls him, the partner and friend who does not fail her Neither in sickness nor in health. They have been together for 15 years since they met in high school and on October 16 they celebrated a "two-day" anniversary. Since the first anniversary could not be spent together, the second was for two. Vizo, a good-as-nails baker, likes "everything" about Elena. "How good she is, the character she has, the affection she shows for those close to her." And to Elena about her bread, which makes her laugh. "And that he is my vital support in everything," he says seriously.
On June 16, 2020, Elena's life turned upside down in the Chuac emergency room. She arrived at the hospital when she was barely on her feet. And after two hours they told him he had leukemia. She was "in shock" after spending several days without knowing if her symptoms could be counted among the strangest of a pregnancy, which they were beginning to look for, or if they were those of a serious illness. It was high-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia. «I did not call anyone, I did not know how to tell my parents. I sent whatsapps to my sisters and to him," recalls Elena, referring to her husband. «I was going by car [from Ferrol] to Chuac because I knew she was in the emergency room, but when I saw her wasap … I don't even know how I got to Coruña. I started crying in the car. Until I arrived and saw her, and she changed my mind. And she encouraged me. It was amazing," Vizo says.
Elena has a TikTok-proof vibrancy and a smile that drowns out sorrow, and is like a bouquet of flowers that arrives when it's needed most. "If I see people in a bad way, I come up to make them better," smiles the Galician who teaches us a lesson, who gets hundreds of "likes" on Instagram. In the networks we have seen her receive and face the most unexpected blow, cut her long and beautiful black hair in tears, throw herself into the bush that she missed during hospital time, laugh at herself and fear with courage.
The memory of that June 16 that marked a before and after is indelible, but everything intensely lived afterwards is even more so. «In the hospital, that day they let him and my mother pass. They were awful. And I told them: 'It's okay'. We will fight together. I told them that I was going to be able to handle everything they threw at me! ”, says Elena, who has won three “games” against the disease.
The first admission led to her being hospitalized for 45 days, which Vizo shared with her in the hospital. She received chemotherapy, and then "we had to recover." “That first time, you go through the entire process admitted. When you begin to recover, when the bone marrow begins to generate cells, they aspirate you. They did the first aspirate to find out what type of leukemia it was, and then, since my blood cells had average normal values, they did another one to see if there was any disease left. The first test gave me a good result, it came out that the marrow was clean, that there was no trace, not even a bit, of the disease. That was 1-0 against leukemia," says Elena, who was discharged full of desire to enjoy the privileges that those who do not live in the hospital have on a daily basis. «From the hospital, I had views of Santa Cristina. I couldn't wait to get out there and feel the wind on my face!" He was able to do it and going out to the summer of 2020 was brutal. "It was amazing to walk through the door to get out of the hospital and feel a breath of air, whoa!" After this first phase of treatment induction came the consolidation phase, which consisted of three cycles of chemotherapy, two of which Elena spent in the hospital and the third in the day hospital, already sleeping at home.
THE 3-0 OF A FIGHTER
The process was "long." The chemo sessions began in August 2020 and ended in February 2021: "That was 2-0" against the disease. «The consolidation stage was the hardest process, because it gave me more security to be admitted than to go home. I had to go to the emergency room several times to put platelets. With the covid, I was very scared. I thought that if I caught something, I was going to have a bad time or that I was going to die. It was hard," he continues.
The 3-0 scoreline in the fight against cancer came for this couple who are fond of good food, family time, walks and the beaches of Santa Comba and San Xurxo when Elena had a new vacuum "and gave perfect." Elena always had the support of her family, who, at the beginning of the treatment, went every day to greet her from the street at the window of her hospital room. They never failed.
Life doesn't look or feel the same after overcoming cancer. "Now we savor everything triple," she says. "I always tell him that you have to live day by day, that if you can do what you want, you have to do it," he says. This brought us closer. We were already united, but we are more so ». Beating leukemia “made us invincible. This disease made us realize that together we can handle whatever they throw at us. I know that I have a person with me one hundred percent, "says Elena.
Would you marry him again? «Maneee! It's just that I always tell him that I want to marry him again," Elena declares. Next plans? “Right now, live in the moment and travel when we can. We closed Ai Carmiña [the workshop that Elena set up in A Coruña with Anxela Rodríguez] and he is supporting me to get going again. Let's see if I can start in December ». Vizo was part of the cure: «Without him I would not be so happy. He, if I'm afraid, pushes me, "says Elena.
Her style, with or without long hair, sets trends. “I want to get my long hair back, but I still appreciate the hair that came out. As my sister María [the eldest of the four that are the Naveiras] says, she is the fighting hair, hahaha ».
What is the recipe for this love? "Respect yourself a lot," says Elena. «To be, to be there for the joys and also in all the bad things that happen to us». "And we are", reinforces Vizo. They make bouquets of flowers and bread rolls with their sorrows.
Ariel and Mari, from La Plata to Rianxo: «We confined ourselves together almost without knowing each other»
Ana Abelenda
When Ariel speaks, a story is written. His phrases are planes that cross the distance between the one he tells and the one who listens, without losing the line that leads to his destination. He does not fulfill, he assures, the cliché of the "caramelous" Argentine, he is a "toxo" that in Galicia "another toxo" found. And that meeting blossomed.
The adventure started by chance, because of a photo. «I have a friend who came from Argentina to Padrón. I saw some photos in which she appeared... And I said: 'And this girl?' She told me she was a co-worker. I sent her, Maricarmen, a friend request on Facebook. And he accepted me, and there he stayed ». Ariel was then in charge of a hairdresser in La Plata, when she met the rianxeira through networks that caught her attention. In February 2017, they had "the first chat" on Facebook, which was followed by other specific ones on WhatsApp. "She asked my friend about me. My friend, as a good friend, told him the good part", he smiles.
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© Copyright LA VOZ DE GALICIA S.A.Polígono de Sabón, Arteixo, A CORUÑA (SPAIN) Registered in the Mercantile Registry of A Coruña in Volume 2438 of the Archive, General Section, on pages 91 and following, page C-2141. CIF: A-15000649.
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