"It shocked me to see the parents crying to tell me I had leukemia"
The young man from Lleida, Martí Bach, publishes a personal diary about his recovery from a cancer diagnosed in 2023, when he was 13 years old.
Benavent de Segrià—Martí, you have blood cancer.
With tears in his eyes, Martí Bach Bayo's father gave him this terrible news. It was February 3, 2023, when the young man was attending an extracurricular English class at the Sagrada Família School in Lleida. His father had arrived at the center with the results of an analysis that confirmed the worst suspicions. He had to be taken immediately by ambulance to the Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona.
"I am in shock, I start punching the ground, I don't believe it!!! My tongue is tingling, I start shouting, but I don't cry". This is how Martí describes that fateful moment in a book published a few weeks ago, under the title "The stop of my life (Pagès Editors). A memory in the form of a personal diary supported by the FC Barcelona Foundation and a personal dedication from the blue forward Dani Olmo ("You are an inspiration to all"). And indeed, young Martí, who is now 16 years old and has recovered from the illness, has been the goalkeeper for Atlètic Segre for over a decade.
It was his parents who cried a lot in the early stages of this crisis. And this turns out to be one of the most impactful memories the young man retains. “A child doesn’t usually see his parents cry –he says–; it impressed me.” On the other hand, by contrast, he was able to observe that his grandparents showed themselves to be stronger than ever. “It’s not that they are stronger –he clarifies–, it’s that they have been through other more difficult situations throughout their lives”.
Martí Bach wrote The Stop of My LifeAssociation of Relatives and Friends of Children with Cancer of Catalonia (AFANOC)
Having made the decision to come to light, all profits from the sales of this book will go to the Association of Families and Friends of Children with Cancer of Catalonia (AFANOC) to help in cancer research.
Children and adolescents, in the same bag
Like most cancer patients, Martí Bach has gone through different phases. In many he became depressed seeing his physical deterioration. "My body has betrayed me," he accuses at the beginning of the book. That's why he recounts his constant need to relate to healthy people or other patients who would transmit optimism to him. “I was with children who were worse off than me, with many complications, and that, although it may seem selfish, didn't help me at all," he explains.
But one of his great demands is that sick adolescents enjoy their own space. He regrets that he often had to share a room and experiences with much younger children than him. He recalls that many of the activities at Casa dels Xuklis (a reception house promoted by AFANOC) were more thought out for young children. "They put us in the same bag, even though we adolescents experience the illness in a very different way - he explains -. While the younger ones will forget it when time has passed, we will surely remember it for the rest of our lives.
A future computer engineer
Martí Bach, now fully recovered, lives with his family in Benavent de Segrià and is preparing for the university entrance exam. He wants to study computer engineering and has very good prospects. At the same time, he continues to play football and defends the goal for Atlètic Segre, a club he started playing for when he was only five years old. He has turned this sport into a metaphor for his life. Indeed, each chapter of the book is preceded by quotes from players and coaches that transfer football's clichés to real life and, above all, to overcoming his illness. "Until the last minute of the last game, anything is possible," he quotes Scottish coach Alex Ferguson. This is because Martí has now set himself the goal of living intensely. "Life is short and we only live once," he himself writes in the book. "Before the illness, I wouldn't have thought this, and right now I intend to enjoy myself as much as possible," he argues.
Martí admits that he does not consider himself a strong person: “Nobody is ever prepared to know they have cancer”, but when the moment comes “you have to endure”. "Life is hard and merciless", he concludes in his diary. And with his recovery, he has refuted another of his quotes, that of the German top scorer Miroslav Klose: “Success is not by chance”.