“That wasn’t a goal!” he says Johanis Menco with an archer’s voice that still comes naturally to her. “I didn’t let them do it to me, because by being alive, I won that game.” And yes, Johanis, who survived an accident that took away his left leg and took football away from him forever, is very right.
According to the criteria of
It has been almost four years, it will be June 28, since he lost his leg and, yet, the memories are still fresh in Johanis’ mind. She, who lived for soccer, was the goalkeeper for Real Santander, and played four or even five games a day. She speaks today with the tranquility of someone who has told her story hundreds of times. He got into the habit of saying that he tripped on a tile, collided with the glass of a balcony and his leg was seriously affected, three surgeries and nothing, and that after a few days he no longer had it, and thus his life turned upside down like They are the unexpected turns of life, and thus, overnight, football ended. Everything that fast, everything that hard.
In her mind she seems to hear at this moment, as she tells her story once again, her mother’s voice telling her, with her shocked mother’s voice: “Sorry, daughter,” and she is lying on a bed, without understanding what passed. She suddenly looks under the sheet and is surprised, immediately feeling the absence of her leg and thinking that she is still asleep, that it is a nightmare. “Sorry, daughter,” the voice continues to sound, that voice that apologized because it was his mother who had to respond to the doctor who asked insistently and urgently, the leg or the life, the leg or the life. ..? Leg…
Then, enter reality, understand, accept and, most importantly, decide to fight, to be someone, to not remain collapsed, if she was no longer going to be a soccer goalkeeper, it was going to be something else, because Johanis is not made for defeat. Johanis Menco doesn’t allow those types of goals. As soon as the amputation came, one of his most arduous battles began to achieve disability pension, a procedure that she did not have in mind, that she did not know about. She says that one day they came from the Association of Professional Soccer Players (Acolfutpro) and they told him: ‘Johanis, you have the right to this because your job is to be a soccer player and you will no longer be able to play soccer, but we can fight for the pension, because your leg means everything to you; we have to fight’. Then they advised her and together with the lawyer Eduardo Ramírez they started a match that did not last 90 minutes, but four years. Four years of procedures, guardianships, summonses, repeated medical check-ups, corroboration of dates and data, fights, crying and crying, receiving a no, appealing and believing that it was no longer possible.
Johanis tells it and gets tired just thinking about everything he had to fight until the Santander Regional Disability Rating Board gave him a rating for loss of work capacity of 55.88 percent, then it was time to celebrate. another goal saved. “The fight was hard, but in the end it was worth the wait, the fight. The lawyer did tell me: ‘Joha, this is tenacity, anyone gives up.’ We knew the battle was going to be tough, it was four years of many tears. But good things come to those who know how to wait and who are patient. The moment of happiness has arrived,” says Johanis, who calls herself the ‘queen of guardianships‘, for all the actions he had to undertake during these four years to win this match, which now gives him a little more peace of mind for his future, for his daily fight, his fight day and night, because it is not easy, never It will be easy.
stand up and fight
“Why me? “Why me?” are questions that run through the head of Johanis Menco at 30 years old, on some mornings, before getting up, on those gray days in which doubts hit like stones on his head, those mornings in which he believes that his left leg is still there, with her, and no. And yet, Johanis is filled with a strength of steel, he is convinced that being alive was the goal that saved him from destiny in the last minute, so he stands up on his right leg, which also has a delicate injury that led him to undergo foot reconstruction surgery that left his toes immobile, to continue with his daily personal battle.
Johanis no longer plays football, it was a blow that impacted her greatly, but she never left the sport. She ventured into cycling, first without being very convinced, and then was surprised that she was really good, on the track and on the road, that she really had other talents beyond catching balls. She was fortunate to receive the support of the Ottobock company, which has provided her in these four years with all the prostheses that she has needed to practice her sport. And so she began to make her way in another discipline, to compete and win medals, like when she was departmental track champion at the Santander Paranationals, and she has other medals that she keeps as treasures.
Johanis, who was born in San Pablo, in the department of Bolívar, lives alone in Bucaramanga. Two years ago she told her family that she could take care of herself. Her company is a little dog, his name is Max, and he is, as she says, her other leg. It has not been easy. At night, she says, she arrives exhausted from training so much, she wants to sleep, but when she goes to bed, the desired sleep does not come, she starts to think about everything that has happened to her, about that accident, she remembers her leg, it seems to her that it is still There, the famous phantom limb syndrome, she feels currents, the subconscious betrays her, she tries to get up and take steps and that’s when it dawns on her. She then closes her eyes, but the desire to sleep is not enough. Johanis hasn’t slept well for a long time.
“I want to confess something…”, he says, and then remains in a silence that seems eternal… He resumes: “I am still in psychological and psychiatric treatment… with medication… depression and anxiety prevail in me … In networks you see a strong, brave Johanis, and that is not always the case… that pension thing helped me… that is to improve, to be able to sleep, it has been four years of taking medication , it is difficult to sleep, no matter how tired I get from my training and everything I do… Sometimes he asked me if all this is worth it, many ask me if with the pension I regain my happiness, and I tell them No, but it helps me, it gives me the push to move forward.”
Johanis has a purpose
Those mornings I say: ‘My God, let go of your warrior because I can’t take it anymore…’, but I say: if this happened, it’s for a reason.
On those gray mornings Johanis doesn’t want to get up, he just wants to cry, and he cries, and he asks himself, over and over again, “why me”, “why me”, and he answers that it is God’s designs, which is his will, then he wipes his tears and gets up. “Those mornings I say: ‘My God, let go of your warrior because I can’t take it anymore…’, but I say: if this happened, it’s for a reason, maybe football wasn’t my thing. In these four years I have grown as a person, so I feel that it is worth it, because many see me as a reference, as an example to follow, so I say: the purpose is that, to be able to transform lives, if that is what God wants, Here I am, I don’t know how long…”, he says.
But there are not always doubts, sometimes Johanis wakes up determined to defeat the bad days, to defeat the bad thoughts, she knows that next June 28, when she turns four years old, is going to be the worst day, but she is already preparing To scare away the ghosts, he motivates himself by thinking that he has to train, get on the bike and fight.
Now he has the dream of reaching the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Gamesis convinced that she is going to achieve it, and we already know that nothing is too big for Johanis.
“Football made me a brave and fighting woman… Until today I feel that I have achieved a lot of my dreams, life gave me a small turn, I have known how to face all of this in the best way. They tell me that in the arc you are a hero or you are a villain, I decided to be the heroine of myself,” she says.
—Was getting the pension like saving another goal from destiny or was it like a goal from Johanis?
—Yes, it’s my last minute goal, it’s worth winning a final. And I hope to reap more triumphs. Life has me up for great things…
PABLO ROMERO
SPORTS journalist
@PabloRomeroET
More sports news
#Johanis #Menco #warrior #won #battle #disability #pension #heroine