Sara Polo Madrid
Madrid
Updated Thursday, April 4, 2024-21:32
"How many times do we leave things for later? What if later is never?" A woman's voice asks the questions. Images from home videos flash on the screen. Joy, dancing, laughter, beach and sun, music and enjoyment. A little over a year ago Spain shook.
Elena Huelva
, the young woman in her twenties who had turned the war against cancer into a battle for life here and now, said goodbye to her forever.
"My desire has won and no matter what happens, I have fought and made visible what I want to make visible. It is not necessary to win to know that we have won.
Life is living and bringing back memories
." They were his last words, already in a whisper, from the hospital bed, in a video that on X alone, the old Twitter, accumulated more than 82,000
likes
. The previous four years, the Sevillian had abandoned her adolescence in rigorous live action through social networks to sneak into the hearts of thousands of followers who followed the day-to-day life of her final battle.
To know more
Health.
Elena Huelva's Baby Pelón raises 87,000 euros for Ewing sarcoma research
Editorial: EUROPA PRESS Madrid
Elena Huelva's Baby Pelón raises 87,000 euros for Ewing sarcoma research
Social networks.
Elena Huelva, Álex Lequio and more young people who teach us another way of talking about death
Editor: MARÍA B. SÁNCHEZ
Elena Huelva, Álex Lequio and more young people who teach us another way of talking about death
My desire wins
, the motto that brought her to fame just when life was against her, gives name to the vindication of her legacy that hits theaters this Friday in the form of a documentary. One hour and 40 minutes of solidarity, monetary and spiritual. "No one is going to leave the room with the same perspective on life,"
Emi Huelva
, Elena's sister and the voice of her message, comes to the phone now that hers has been turned off.
"It has been an intense process in every sense: it has been beautiful and at times, very hard, but at all times we have been aware of continuing my sister's legacy. Its objective was to make her illness visible and raise funds to find a cure, everything is not enough for his message to continue alive," says the eldest of the Huelvas. Emi says that Elena left her "many things to do" and that it is precisely that task that gives her strength in her daily life. "My life has changed completely since she is gone, I am no longer the same person nor do I have the same concerns. I need to be able to transform everything that has happened to me into something good," she says.
But, let us start at the beginning. When
Elena Huelva
was an ordinary 16-year-old girl, happy and carefree, in love with the songs of
Manuel Carrasco
and
Aitana
. And suddenly, the pain in her leg that nothing could relieve. The resonance to rule out greater evils. The urgent call to her parents. The worst possible news. Elena suffered from a rare type of cancer with a poor prognosis,
Ewing sarcoma
.
And the days of confinement began, hooked on the chemotherapy bag four or five days a week, from morning to night. "The hospital became her second home," recalls
Emi Palomo
, her mother, who does not shed a tear in the entire documentary because she has already shed them all. Elena had a television in the same bed, but she preferred other types of entertainment.
At first, his
TikTok
channel was a mere vehicle for communication with his friends. Also an entertainment. But little by little, strangers joined them, some famous, others anonymous. They came there by word of mouth and never completely left, fascinated with the strength of that young woman who made the oncology team at the
Virgen del Rocío hospital
dance or who shaved her head while laughing when the treatment destroyed her hair.
At first Elena wore a wig to go unnoticed. But one day, on the beach, the heat got the better of her modesty and she took it off. She never put it back on. She perfected the technique of tying a headscarf until it became iconic. She had the image, she had the slogan, she had thousands and thousands of followers. Her profiles had become a means of communication that quickly led to activism.
"Social networks are posturing, people always try to pretend that they are better than they really are, but Elena was tremendously natural, and that is what connected with people," the
influencer
Tomás Páramo
, one of so many famous people who fell in love with the charms of that happy and lively girl who took the world by storm even though life insisted on getting in her way. "Everything she did was from the heart, and when someone speaks from here it reaches people," adds
Eva González
, and with one hand she points to her chest while her eyes fill with tears.
Elena Huelva
's real breakout
came with an interview on the Telecinco program
Viva la vida
, which Toñi Moreno
then presented
: "She has left a very important legacy for everyone who wants to listen to her about how to live and how to leave, too." , the Andalusian journalist says to the camera. Her cathodic premiere catapulted her into the Spanish
star system
, where she continues to shine today. "You talked to her and it was like talking to someone famous," says Dr.
Ignacio Gutiérrez
, pediatric oncologist at Virgen del Rocío.
José Luis Hernández Arango
, screenwriter and director, also reached Elena through social networks
, who followed the agony live and was clear that this was a story he wanted to tell: "It couldn't stay in another viral that falls into oblivion." So he transferred his proposal to the family, and after a few months of doubts they decided to accept. "Everything was very recent, but we thought about what my sister had taught us: what should we wait for? Things have to be done when the opportunity arises," explains Emi.
Music was the incentive that kept
Elena Huelva
's spirits up even in the worst moments. The last few months she balanced her chemo cycles with concerts by
Manuel Carrasco
and
Aitana
, her fetish artist. She never wanted to miss anything, and she didn't until the end. "She is a very special person, you don't find people like that on a daily basis, and I know a lot of people," Carrasco acknowledges in the film, for which she composed the soundtrack. He does not give up talking about her in the present tense. "That look and that desire to hold on to life... They reach someone with a minimum of sensitivity."
Aitana
admits that she always knew where Elena was when she went on stage: "It seemed like her illness didn't exist when you saw her there dancing with everyone."
"Thousands of years of philosophical treatises and this girl, in a moment and with very simple messages, reveals the meaning of life. She knew she was very loved, but I think she was not aware of the transformative power she had," he says. the director of the documentary. The sister of the protagonist disagrees: "She knew very well what she did and the importance it had. She started for mere entertainment, but as soon as she detected her own strength she used it to do good. Everything she did was tremendously generous."
The entire box office proceeds will go to research into the disease that extinguished a young activist but still ignites the hope of thousands of people. "The most frustrating thing is that Spain has entered clinical trials only thanks to private financing. Otherwise, it would have been left out, despite being the country that recruited the most patients. In cancer, mathematics does not exist, each body is different, But the equation, more research, more survival, is pure mathematics," Emi laments, and concludes: "This affects us all, none of us are going to be spared. If not now, it will be in a while; if not you "It will be someone close to you. In life, as in healthcare, you have to have hope, but there is a lot of work to do."