FORMER Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas' wife has posted her first public photo since her cancer diagnosis a year ago, and appears radiant and healthy.
Fans, including Sara Carbonero's 2.7 million Instagram followers, had been concerned for the past 10 months or so since, although she is very active on social media, her regularly-published pictures all turned out to be several years old.
She uploaded a photo of herself embracing a friend on New Year's Eve wearing 'fun' glasses with the year on them – but upon closer inspection, these turned out to read '2001'.
Despite the Covid-19 crisis, Sara, 36, and Iker, 39 are having a far easier time of it in 2020 than they did last year – the latter, who was playing for FC Oporto at the time and is still on the team, collapsed with a heart attack during training in May 2019.
He was just a month short of his 38th birthday, a very young age to be diagnosed with a myocardial infarction – a narrowing or blocking of the arteries supplying the heart, and which does not normally affect people of his level of physical fitness.
Fortunately, as he was not alone when it happened, he was in hospital within minutes and had three stents inserted, being declared out of danger within a few days.
But a condition and operation of this nature means his road to full recovery was not guaranteed and, even if it was, would be long and frustrating for a man at the peak of his sporting career.
As if that was not enough, Sara announced soon after Iker's release from hospital that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and would need surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The reporter, model and influencer was, as far as anyone with a cancer diagnosis can be considered 'lucky', fortunate in that sense: The tumour had been discovered during a routine gynaecology appointment, so it was detected at a very early stage.
Normally, ovarian cancer is asymptomatic until it is stage III or IV and its typical late discovery means it has one of the highest mortality rates of all tumours affecting women.
In eight out of 10 women who go through surgery and chemotherapy, the cancer returns and is frequently metastatic, because of its late diagnosis.
But for Sara, the early detection meant medics were talking from the start about a 'complete recovery'.
Her operation in June was successful and surgeons confirmed all the cancer had been removed, but chemotherapy was still necessary to prevent any microscopic malignant cells which may have detached from reproducing elsewhere in the body.
After a cryptic Instagram message in late October hinting that she had 'lots to celebrate', Sara confirmed on November 7 that she had finished chemotherapy and was now over the most gruelling part of her battle with the disease.
She will now have substantially finished treatment, although she is expected to still be taking medication for a while.
Other than a distance shot in ¡Hola!, hand in hand with Iker walking a street in their Portuguese home town with their children Martín, now six and Lucás, four, having clearly lost a lot of weight, no recent footage has been seen of Sara – until now.
Her long, thick, tousled dark hair has always been her pride and joy – instead of a hat or scarf, the ¡Hola! picture showed her in what was probably a wig that looked almost identical to her real locks – but her Instagram photo, showing her with short, slightly curly hair regrown after treatment has attracted a flood of positive comments from fans and celebrities.
They include her closest friend and fellow TeleCinco news presenter Isabel Jiménez, who says: “There's no light more beautiful than yours.”
Eva González, Paula Echevarría and María José Suárez also commented on how 'pretty' she looks in the photo, along with other famous national presenters such as Cristina Pedroche, Natalia Rodríguez, Irene Junquera, Lucía Villalón, Beatriz Luengo, Adriana Abenia, Vanesa Lorenzo, Raquel Sánchez Silva and Nuria Roca.
Some of Spain's most famous pop artists, including the reality show success Chenoa, and Amaia Montero – former front woman of the legendary band La Oreja de Van Gogh and now a solo artist since 2008 – plus Spain's 'culture minister for a week' and author Máximo Huerta, actress Maribel Verdú, and sports personalities like Feliciano López and Carles Puyol were among the long list of national A-listers who complimented Sara on how 'marvellous', 'strong' and 'proud' she was, sharing her joy and relief at having survived cancer.
She is shown wearing a long, loose pleated brown dress, a long grey cardigan with the sleeves rolled up and two discreet gold necklaces – in keeping with her apparently effortless elegance and understated style.
As always, Sara hashtagged her one-woman company, SlowLife, through which she works as influencer and model, and also 'Porto' and 'Boa tarde' ('good afternoon' or 'good evening', in Portuguese) as a nod to the coastal town she and Iker have made their home.
The photo had already attracted a quarter of a million 'likes' by this morning.
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