‘I don’t post photos crying,’ says Miguel Cedeño; the Ecuadorian journalist declares war for his life

He has been away from the small screen for a long and necessary time. TV studios and interviews were put on hold. The guideline is not set by the day’s agenda, on this occasion his health is a priority. The Guayaquil journalist Miguel Cedeno he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer the previous year. Since then, and as expected, his life has changed. The trips and parties have decreased, now his frequent appointments are in the hospital to undergo chemotherapy or check-up; his left hand has become his best ally while he regains mobility in his right arm and went from drinking sodas all day to replacing them with water.

He arrived at our appointment accompanied by his mother. The strength of his mother is remarkable, she has become his inseparable companion. Not even the hat, glasses and masks that cover Miguel’s face can make him go unnoticed. When he speaks, the tone of his voice and his laughter give him away. Yes, he has cancer but the disease has not intimidated him. He has given her strength, showed her his options, opened her eyes to reality.

“I never expected it, but when I started to feel these lumps in my neck and armpits I told myself this is not normal, but since I was out for a walk I tried to tell myself that it was nothing bad, but internally I already felt that something bad was happening. with my body because I didn’t feel normal, and that’s when I couldn’t stand the pain anymore, especially in my right arm, which is the most compromised, and that’s when I told my mom that something was wrong and that we go to a doctor. He is the one who tells me: that is a lymphoma. From there I was assimilating what I could have, ”he says.

At the end of November he received the news together with his mother. “After having undergone the biopsy is when they tell me that I had this lymphatic cancer and that I should receive chemotherapy as part of the treatment. At the beginning I said to myself: with treatment it passes. Then when the days passed and I was locked in a room and I no longer had that daily activity in the program and everything, that’s when I said: My God, when am I going to return to my job? It was the first thing that came to my mind. Then came the arm thing, which made me divert my attention from the cancer. After the biopsy, I felt that my arm began to tingle and lose mobility, I live with daily tingling and swelling. According to my doctor, Carlos Plaza, and my physiatrist, they tell me that this is a good sign and that I may be able to regain full mobility. Before, that worried me, but now as long as I’m alive and cleanse myself of this cancer, it’s the main thing”, he reveals.

At what point did your doctors tell you that you could no longer go to work?

From the first moment I started with the intense pain, I never had a pain that increased, from the beginning it was intense and I put up with it and didn’t say anything, that it was my carelessness, I always self-medicated, which is wrong, when I couldn’t stand it I told my mom that I couldn’t go (to work) anymore and with the pain of my soul because I have gone to work with a temperature of 38. He had only missed when something was serious and literally this was serious and without knowing the results of the exams yet. The arm was mega-swollen, this part of the face too, I had a little more weight there.

There was a season when he lost a lot of weight and then gained it back.

Later I discovered that what I went down had been a symptom of this (cancer) and also going up, but there I didn’t have these lumps, but I told myself: good because of anemia, poor diet, eating at odd hours, but then when I got involved with the topic of cancer was that I knew that one of the symptoms was losing weight and that was what happened to me in the year of the pandemic.

Did you receive care in Ecuador from the beginning or did you leave the country for medical reasons?

I always started here in Ecuador, although at the beginning, due to my medical insurance, they recommended that I go to Spain because I had all the openness due to the international insurance that I have, thank God, which I acquired just two years ago and which was at the insistence of Tani Bermeo (sister of Sharon). From the beginning I decided to treat myself here, at the private clinic Juan Tanca Campozano, in Solca. I would have regretted my whole life if I hadn’t bought health insurance, this disease is expensive and thanks to that I’m fine.

You assure that cancer is not synonymous with death, do you see it as an opportunity for change?

As a second chance, for me this is and I have always said it is a second chance that God gave me to value my family more. I have read comments that people put to me about how I can be so happy or why I laugh. The other time I read a comment that they didn’t even seem to have the disease because I’m laughing from ear to ear, but I don’t show myself on networks how much I’ve already cried, I don’t post photos crying and I don’t even have tears anymore, At the beginning it was the most difficult. At times, yes, it makes me depressed, like despair of knowing when I’m going to receive my final diagnosis that I’m cured, because I have every faith that I’m going to be cured, but I’m anxious that I want to finish, recover my move and get back on track.

Now I am living with my aunts Dolores and Elvira, in fact all my aunts, but they are more attentive. One pleases me with the food, because I have to follow a very special diet, but I have been a big eater and if I like ball broth now they make it without peanuts, without fat, and they make it for me according to my new lifestyle . Now I am zero queue, when before I was queue. Before I never drank water, I drank cola from breakfast, I was a fan of junk food.

What other changes have you implemented?

The weight loss, the hair, when it started to fall out. One day when I couldn’t stand it when the pillow woke up full of hair, I told my mom to buy me a machine and shave my head and I was happy, and there I discovered that my head was round and not flattened, because I was worried that my head was ugly.

Now I go to Solca and it’s like being with family, the nurses are divine. It depends a lot on the attitude of the people, the treatment where I am is nice, the nurses and doctors have a commitment to God and the patients. I decided to take this as a positive experience and continue, otherwise this disease would win me over.

How is Miguel now?

I have always said that cancer is not going to change my essence, I am fun, I am happy, I am a joker, but cancer is not going to change me nor will it change me. If I have to criticize someone, I criticize them, I make fun of them and say that here I have the baby, by my arm, and my friends tell me that I am an idiot. But I have to laugh at myself so that it doesn’t affect me as much as it did at some point.

The doctor told me to get out, not to lock myself up, he asked me not to be sad, because this disease depresses many people. And now what I have known about this new Miguel is a more familiar Miguel, at a level that now wants to make up for lost time, perhaps with his mother, with his aunts, they are like my mothers. And before they invited me and I didn’t go for work or go on a trip, and now that I’m with one of them, she has even given me her room to be more comfortable. Now I am with them to avoid getting infected, since my sister goes out every day because of her work. I am happy, I grew up with them. My aunt Elvira asks me every day what I want to eat before cooking.

In this new stage of life, what are you grateful for?

I appreciate people’s affection, with my family I’ve always felt it, but I think God made me see how valuable it is to have them because I didn’t see it that way before. Now I have verified it, that is the only thing that one has, the mother, the family, the friends, the public.

In the good seasons you meet your friends and in bad times you meet the real ones, have you experienced it?

That’s right, I’ve found out who my real friends are and I’ve also found out who aren’t. Completely.

Have they walked away alone?

Yes, they have gone away on their own, I have felt that, but it is also a confirmation because I am very intuitive and the people who want to be with me in this process are the ones who have to be and with whom I am going to share myself when I am completely cured. . I feel that I am now at a spectacular moment in my life, in which I have received a lot of love and perhaps I no longer receive the same hate (hate) from before.

Did you get a lot of hate before?

Yes, because of my work, because of entertainment, because of my comments, there are people who are very passionate about certain characters and perhaps some of my comments that were not so positive already received negative comments.

But if he did it as Cherry, this is a character for the screen.

Not so much, Cherry is part of me, but I did like that, the affection of people when I meet them on the street, even if I wear a mask and cap, they give me words of encouragement.

Do you think about death?

From the first moment. When I heard about cancer I told my mom: I’m going to die, what’s going to happen? If I die, talk to Marlon (Acosta, the producer and her friend) to make me a telenovela like Sharon and I even called a friend to play my part. But all that came to nothing because my mom told me: don’t worry, all this is going to happen. And from there, little by little I was assimilating the chemotherapies (it is already in its fourth stage of six cycles).

Warriors of life, their return to TV

This project began when the ravages of chemotherapy prevented him from eating. In Solca he met the lawyer Valeria Constante, who has now become his friend. “She had a stronger story than mine, she gave me a lot of encouragement. She did an event for the Day of Love, on Monday the 14th I was with her in Solca delivering flowers, cupcakes and roses and the next day was childhood cancer. So I proposed to Marlon that we take these notes out with a special cigarette butt. He told me that he was about to propose that I interview other people who, like me, are going through the same situation, and from there, thanks to God and the public relations specialist María José Guillén, he gave me all the openness to be able to do the reports” , refers.

Warriors of life is a segment that is part of the program From mouth to mouth. The space opened this Tuesday and has already recorded nine cases that will be presented once a week.

“I am very happy, very excited, very happy because this was the opportunity I wanted to return to television, but to learn more about this world, which I already knew through social work, but in which I had not been involved. as much as up to now”, he admits.

When do you plan to return to the screen in person?

With hair or without hair, in June that I want or in July, it depends on many things. To be free of cancer, to wait if I have to have surgery, if I have any residue of a tumor, to see that, which my doctor has told me that he does not believe, and I must see if I am going to receive radiotherapy, which is after six cycles.

My last cycle is in May, and after my birthday I receive my last cycle, which I am sure will be a positive response. I hope to recover the mobility of the arm and if not, I already see myself having the slings made in different colors with my suits, but I’ll be back, I’ll be back, that’s already been said. I am going to continue in entertainment, but getting more involved in social work.

Commenting on the lives of other people, when returning to the screen, will not make the negative comments return?

Everything is temporary, the same thing happened to Luis Antonio Ruiz, when he returned and since he has always been very energetic, very forthright when he has had to make a comment there were people who commented, but work is work and I enjoy it and it is my passion and the people who love me and know me are really going to have to know how to understand that I have to go back to my job and that’s what I make a living from, what I like and that’s what I’m going to do. Before having cancer, I have never hurt anyone with a comment, no one has felt offended.

What is your early birthday wish?

To be cured and to recover the mobility of my arm, I hope for that date that the doctor tells me that I am free of cancer. I hope to celebrate it with my family, the gatherings between friends will no longer be more familiar and involve these new friends that I have made and who have become my family.

What has cancer taught you?

It has taught me to be a better person, it’s not that I was a bad person before, but I feel more human, I see life differently, before it was superficial and now I see everything from another perspective. (I)