The story of Juan Dual: Overcoming the impossible

REAL STORIES

Publicado 8 Jan 2025

Por

Ona Canales

The Struggle Against a Devastating Diagnosis

At 13, he was found to have a positive tumour gene that, through the production of a rare disease called multiple familial polyposis, develops cancer in the digestive tract with a probability of 99.8%.

At 19, his colon and rectum were removed, and at 28, his stomach. And his gallbladder.

He lost 50% of his body weight in 3 months.

“People's minds are blown,” he tells me when he explains it. Mine too. This is the story of Juan Dual from Valencia, influencer, writer, speaker, and athlete on the verge of turning forty.

“It's not easy, but you can live.” This is the response I get after asking him to explain how it's possible to live without a stomach. Nor colon. Nor rectum. Nor gallbladder. For over twenty years, he has had to go to the bathroom five to seven times a day. The permanence of the tumour gene in his body means he cannot predict - nor expect - a guaranteed future and yet I cannot detect a single sign of discomfort in his expression. Speaking for almost an hour.

Juan Dual

The Three Times He Was Near Death

Before I can comprehend the magnitude of each word coming from his mouth, he informs me that he has nearly died three times due to surgical complications, and this, combined with having witnessed several deaths in his family, has forged a different vital perception in him. He is truly aware that no one is immortal, and his priorities are clear: "it’s been a long time since I asked for anything for Christmas other than to live another year". Silence.

I had prepared many questions, but I see they are absolutely irrelevant and decide to listen to him. "Through sport, I regained control of my existence," he assures me. “I started walking, and from walking went to jogging and then to running. Bit by bit, I increased the distances, and thus regained physical and emotional independence, which led me to achieve economic independence as well”. He was even able to move out of his parents’ home, where he had had to return. But the recovery was not easy: “I couldn’t go more than five metres without stopping to breathe”.

Sport as Your Driving Force in Life

It is precisely the memory of how he suffered in the hospital that makes him persistent in sports, "seeing that I'm no longer pushing an IV pole counting floor tiles." Juan runs and does ultra-distance cycling, and acknowledges that nothing matches the feeling of freedom he experiences running or cycling alone in the mountains. "It reminds you how miserable you are as a living being in the universe... and having this constantly in mind is addictive."

Not long ago, he decided to share his story on social media after his friends argued that such a powerful story could not remain within a small circle. And how right they were, the friends. Since then, he creates content about the fight against cancer. "And I speak openly about death," he adds. "This ends, and the sooner we realise it, the sooner we can live as fully as possible."

When he finishes speaking, I feel the need to ask him if he has a life motto, a phrase that defines his way of facing life. "I have it tattooed on my arm," he confesses: "Don't think about it." He believes that the moment we start overthinking things, we find excuses not to do them, and that we need to move. We are where we are because we have moved. That's why sport means so much to him.

What an inspiring person. In the end, I think, the question is more about how we face what happens to us than what happens to us as such. A textbook cliché, yes. But clichés exist for a reason.