Nothing was the same afterwards.
On April 8, 2016, a doctor sent me off into the weekend with the words:
„Make the most of every day you have left. Your tumor is highly aggressive and already over 7 cm in size. This type of cancer usually spreads from a size of 3 cm. It is very likely that you already have metastases.“
I sat there like I was in a movie. Afterwards, I went back to the office and just carried on working. It was only in bed at night, when my then 2.5-year-old son and my daughter, who had just turned a year old, were lying with me, that I really realized what I had been told. I had the first panic attack of my life.
The fact that I am sitting here today and am healthy is a miracle. And, of course, thanks to modern medicine.
Since then, I've felt invincible on the one hand - and at the same time I'm still scared to death. I often find this simultaneity hard to bear, which is why my thoughts are sometimes gloomy. I can often only half enjoy beautiful moments.
Nevertheless, I am grateful for the „afterwards“ section.
It has brought me a lot of good things - above all a radical clarity about what is important to me.
Who I want to spend my time with.
Sometimes I am uncompromising in this.
And I have to keep telling myself that self-care has nothing to do with selfishness.
I realized that even close friends still find it difficult to understand what actually happened to me back then.
It often looked so „easy“ from the outside - because I was always positive. And because I'm healthy again today. But it was and is hard.
What got me through it? First and foremost my children.
Dying was simply not an option. Never.
I want to see them grow up - and only have to leave when I know that they can carry on without me from then on.
Until then, I'll stay here.
fckcncr