Sometimes, when the desire to live is so strong, there is nothing that can stand in the way. The story of Juan Carlos Lara It is that of a true fighter who has managed to stand up to death. When everything seemed to collapse when he was diagnosed with a terminal cancer Three and a half years ago, the hunt It gave him the strength he needed to face this tough battle.
Without any family reference, at the age of 18 he got his weapons permit and began hunting. Today he is 40 and has spent his entire life accompanied by his great passion. “Like everything at the beginning, both my work and economic life were not what they are now, but I hunted as and where I could,” he told the team. Rockrose and Sedal.
He fulfilled his dream as a hunter and beat cancer
During all this time he has practiced small game hunting and has been a dog-hunter, but being a hunter was “like a dream that was almost impossible to achieve.” We focus on that ‘almost’, because achieving it has been one of the positive experiences he has gained from the illness.
«Cancer brings very bad things, but also good ones. Being a hunter has helped me and to be able to dedicate myself to thinking only about her and the countryside as my medicine for my recovery,” Juan Carlos has highlighted.
It all goes back to February 26, 2021, when, after noticing pain in his kidney, he had a CT scan to locate where the stone was. However, “a stage IV carcinoma appeared in the stomach that went through the walls of the stomach and was close to the pancreas and liver,” the hunter explained.
Since 2007, when he bought his first one-hectare plot, he has been working to obtain the 14 hectares he currently has. They belong to the Villanueva de San Carlos hunting reserve, in Ciudad Real, and that is where he has his corner where “neither cancer, nor treatments, nor chemo rules.” Just him and his animals.
The operation did not go as expected
After several tests, the diagnosis determined that the entire stomach had to be removed, the organs that had been affected cleaned and reconstructed. They told him that there was a good chance that he would not come out of that intervention.
“On April 9, 2021, my life changed,” he said. «That Juan Carlos never returned. I had surgery and things went wrong due to the flooding of the lungs and the great blood loss he had had. I entered the ICU as a matter of life or death and I was lucky to meet the best team and the best professionals,” he acknowledged.
«I was intubated for 10 days, it was impossible to wake up“My wife visited me every day and she tells me that the doctors told her to talk to me naturally, about everyday life. When she mentioned my daughter, my mother and my farm, she says that, even when I was asleep, a tear would fall down my cheek,” said Juan Carlos.
As the days went by, the doctors lowered his sedation and, as he himself has stated, he only thought about how, if he retired, he would have more time to devote to waiting and fulfilling his dream: hunting.
«When I left the ICU and the ward I was in a very bad state and due to my reduced mobility due to the loss of muscle mass. I spent my time reading books and watching videos of waiting and hunting. The nurses and doctors looked at me as if I was crazy because, obviously, I was closer to dying than hunting, but I cared less about death and more about hunting.he recalled.
More than 70 chemotherapy sessions
During his visit to oncology, having sent him for only five or six sealing sessions, they found foci in the pancreas, liver and esophagus and these became 72 chemotherapy sessions and 50 immunotherapy sessions.
«The doctor was very radical. He told me that there was little that needed to be done and that what he had done didn’t look good at all. They gave me between five and six months to live and I told him that if I had to die it would be in my house, on my farm, with my daughter, my family and my animals,” he continued.
In May 2021, he began chemotherapy and, despite this, the family decided to go to the countryside to disconnect, as they did every summer. His wife, Cristina, bought him a quad so he could walk around looking at the cattle and feeders on her farm, despite barely being able to get out of bed.
Back in the hunt after his admission to the ICU
«As the days went by I gained strength and my first big day arrived,» Juan Carlos said. «I could wait at the farm, but it was not only incredible to hunt again, but also the mere fact of having the rifle in my hands again, seeing the sunset, the smell of the countryside, the air blowing on my face again. It was incredible, I couldn’t believe that, after being in the ICU so badly and for so long in a hospital, after such a bad prognosis, I was waiting again.»
From there a year passed in which he received his treatment every 15 days. “I was going to start the pigeon, but I didn’t dare ask anyone to accompany me, due to my problems with low blood sugar,” she admitted. «I suggested it to my wife and, once again, she said that she and my daughter would accompany me wherever I wanted to go. “They came almost as nurses and today the three of us are a crew.”
Finally: your dream of going hunting
One day, two of his hunting friends called him to try big game hunting and, once again, his wife encouraged him to fulfill his dream of going hunting. “I started off very well. I killed cattle, we felt very comfortable, they looked after us and protected us and we started to
enjoy. I managed to put the hunting poison into my daughter, and between the two of us, we managed to make my wife start to like it too. and the disease was forgotteneven though the cycles went on and on, now, every 21 days.
“That’s how my days went by,” he noted, “between fields, animals and hunting. It was a form of evasion. Until, at the end of 2022, a test said that the disease was subsiding. “I couldn’t believe that I could beat it and dedicate myself to what I liked.”
“The 2023/24 hunting season began and I finally had a complete hunting action,” he explained. “My dream come true. I was already where I had dreamed, hunting on Sundays, but my partner, the chemo, and the side effects of it were still with me.
Hunting helped him fight against “certain death”
Three months had passed and, once again, he had to undergo another test that determined, literally, ‘surprisingly without signs of malignancy’. «My response was: ‘oysters, Thanks to the countryside and the family I am facing certain death‘. And so I have continued to dedicate every minute to my hobbies,” he continued adding. Despite this, the doctors decided that he should continue with his treatment.
A young woman hunts two huge wild boars in her first wait after overcoming breast cancer
“Today I still go to my check-ups and enjoy hunting, everything that the countryside can give me. I have achieved my dream of being a hunter and I can assure you that, when I am in a position listening to a bark or waiting in the night, illness never crosses my mind for a second,” Juan Carlos assured.
Finally, the hunter wanted to address all those who are reading his story. «My advice is that, in the hardest moments, try to lean on a hobby and take your mind there, so you can achieve it. After two very complicated operations, 21 days in the ICU, 72 sessions of chemo, 50 of immunosuppression and a stomach ache, I managed to face this disease.it is finished.