Carla Suárez: “I have not had a day of mental depression”

During a visit to Madrid to meet commitments with some media, Carla Suárez (Las Palmas, 32 years old) attended AS shortly before end of chemotherapy treatment to which he underwent since he was detected last September a cancer known as Hodgkin lymphoma. On Monday the ordeal ended and everything is going well. The Canarian tennis player is already thinking about playing again.

-How are you?
– Quite well, the body has responded very well to the treatment and I am happy. It has been a fairly clean process, which has run its course, and they have even cut sessions for me, which is always good. I feel good.

-What is your routine?
-The chemo weeks I got up early on Monday to go to the hospital. There they made me an analysis to verify that the defenses were good and then the session of about three hours would come. Then home to be quiet until Friday. From there, I take walks to get into a normal life routine. The weeks without treatment I go to the gym twice, play tennis for three days, and swim one day. For the rest, I do what I can carefully due to the difficulties caused by COVID, but within normality.

-How are the effects of the treatment?
-I am two or three days at home with body pain and a little pain in the belly, but very bearable. In that sense I think I have been quite lucky. From the fourth day I am already perfect.

-And head?
-Very good, because I got used to the idea of ​​the time it was going to be and on top of that they cut my sessions, as I said. Also, in Barcelona I am phenomenal, I have people who help me and I have gone through the whole process with my mother. I have not had a day of mental depression.

-Have you used a psychologist?
-No, because I have hardly ever done it in my career. Only once, in 2015, because I had come from making finals in Miami and Rome, and after Wimbledon I had nine defeats in the first rounds. Then nothing. That if it had been the same, could I have taken advantage of it? Maybe yes, but there were times when it was difficult for me to connect, because the problems I had were competing and it was difficult for that person to understand me. Now much less. I lean on my mother and talk almost daily with my brother and my father. I have many friends, although with the pandemic I have not seen everything I would have liked. I have had escapes with close people and from tennis. I've been getting distracted.

-Was it hard for you to accept the news of your illness?
-It was a fairly easy process, because when I returned from the confinement I spent in Las Palmas and started training in Barcelona, ​​I already saw that my body did not react well. I got tired really fast, I had constant nausea… I knew there was something wrong, although not at those levels. I was doing tests until the doctor told me that there was the possibility of cancer. From that meeting until they gave me the diagnosis, seven or ten days passed, so the news did not surprise me that much, because I had already been in the background. The first thing I asked him is what I had to do and how long it would take to recover. He said, 'six months', and I got so metallic that I didn't have a grief.

-Do you think being an athlete has been good for you to pass this through?
– Everyone has told me, although I have not spoken with anyone who went through the same without being an athlete. I can't compare. But I think that being a tennis player, in an individual sport, has helped me a lot in moments of pain, because we live with that. Maybe that's why I also realized that something was wrong. Then I did everything in a very natural way, very calm, and they also announced everything that was going to happen to me.

-Then I do speak with someone who had already experienced it.
-Yes, a long time ago. Rubén Merchán, a tennis player, went through a similar situation, although it got a little more complicated for him, about 15 years ago. We went to eat and we talked, because I wanted to know how the process was going to be and to calm down a bit. The doctors also gave me a lot of hope and confidence. That's why I didn't want to look for more people either. Every body is different.

-And now, after the sessions, what?
-I will do a check-up next week to see how everything has gone. There are two possibilities, that everything has disappeared and it is finished, or that there is something residual and they have to do a radiotherapy session. After the fourth chemo they did, they already told me that almost everything had disappeared, although they did not tell me how it was going to go. That's why I have saved four, for now. They were going to be 12 and they have stayed at eight. Two months less.

-How does it look physically?
-I get tired much earlier and the recovery is slower, but the free weeks I am always active, 45 minutes or an hour in the gym and half an hour playing tennis.

-Have you missed it a lot?
-No the truth. I was a bit sad that I couldn't be at Roland Garros, because I don't know if I'll be able to play there more and I would have liked to do it one last time. It is not being easy because of the coronavirus, so I have not missed it.

-The classmates and the tennis world have wrapped him up …
-Yes, many get in regular contact with me to see how I'm doing.

-Among them Garbiñe Muguruza …
-Yes, she was in Barcelona and I saw her two three times. I would be very excited to be able to play some more doubles with her, but until I know how my body reacts, I don't know what will happen. Although we do have that illusion of meeting again.

-So you think about playing again.
-I would like to come back so I can say goodbye (He planned to retire in 2020 and had to postpone it to 2021 due to the pandemic). If the checkup goes well and they tell me that everything is over, great. But I don't know when my body will eliminate everything that has been put into it. I would like to be ready in May. But I don't know if I can. For the Games, the invitations are very specific, but I have a protected ranking, with number 68, and I could enter, because the cut is usually there. Hopefully they can be celebrated. It could also be Wimbledon and US Open perfectly.

-Has this experience changed your perception of life?
-Well, no, because I had already decided that 2020 would be my last year for very personal and sentimental reasons. I wanted to spend more time with my family and not be far away, to form my own … This is not going to take away what I already valued. My style and my perception of life will not change, because I already valued essential things very much. I had some plans that have now been broken.

-Have they broken or just stopped?
-More like the second, because I can continue with everything. Because it is a disease that if you heal it does not reproduce again. You have to control and it can come back, but it is not normal. I will be able to lead a totally normal life. My body is doing very well.

-How do you see what is happening in Australia from your position?
-It is difficult to say from here, but you have to look at it globally and know that we are experiencing a global pandemic and despite that, the Australian Open is going to be held. You have to accept the conditions, because deep down they are privileged to be able to play a Grand Slam. It's what you have to stay with. The rest is bad luck. There are people who have lost their jobs, relatives … You have to put everything in perspective. The best news is that they will be able to play and they must say thank you.