Personally, stomach cancer and not getting used to it.

The translation of my husband’s new blog posting.

When the news has “landed”, should a person get used to it also? I don’t know, on the unsurpassed internet much and often good information can be found about cancer and the people who have to deal with it, but I could not find a generally applying answer. So I wonder if one can get used to a situation like that. Something like dentures, or another kind of prosthesis. A nuisance at first, and present in an intrusive way, then, after a while, just a part of your body. You rather didn’t have it, but it happens to be there and it is no use complaining. This is how I would want to face my new companion, the stomach cancer. But by then all kinds of emotions are running through my brain and body. Exhausting emotions, while the body already has difficulty to function with all those evil cells that are joining the system.

It so happens that there is a surplus of bloggers, writers and other media professionals who are active reflecting their own anamnesis.
Often fascinatingly and well written. But I now get the impulse to defend myself, I really didn’t get this cancer to join in this hype. And the fact that I blog about it, has no other function than the rest of my blog has. It is on my mind, and I want to share that on a modest scale with the people who take the effort of coming here. Nothing more, nothing less.

Meanwhile life continues. There are many beautiful moments with my beloved one, (grand) children and during lovely walks. The support and friendship I experience is overwhelming. How to put that into words I don’t really know. It is heart warming and it comes in directly, I shall leave it at that for now. Being ill is what I mostly do whit in the walls of our home. How we manage and experience all of it here I won’t describe, there has to remain a comfortable limit of some privacy.
A nice diner whit in the framework of local government, (without joining in the meal still a fine evening) , a lively council meeting and much, mutual concern. Those are about the ingredients that makes it possible for me to be more than a man with a disease.

This week I shall step into the hospital world again. A 2nd opinion, so also a verdict again. That too is something I shall have to go through, and then the wait whether chemo and/or other medical interventions might do something for me. Maybe I shall find out in time how to live life while the finiteness of that life announces itself so shamelessly and impertinently.
Meanwhile I listen to old songs, Schubert. Timelessly beautiful. Dietrich Fischer Diskau in his years of glory.

It looks like it will be a good Sunday. All the best to you. Till next time.

My husband’s blogposting in Dutch

My husband’s blog: “Personally, a turn for the worse”

My husband’s blog

This is a blog I don’t want to write. But since I started sharing my story, I don’t feel I should quit now. When I wrote my last blog posting, my “personal story”, I had a good message. The doctor who examined my petscan of a part of my organs told me he did not see any spreading of the cancer (just something suspicious ) . So I was more optimistic about the continuation of my treatment. Unfortunately today I was told that further examination showed a totally different picture. The tumor is too big and too far spread for surgery. I shall not make this a medical – technical story, but that was the essence of the message.

Of course we are going for a second opinion, but with the explanation this doctor gave, I don’t expect the outcome to be something very different. So we shall now go into the direction of chemo therapy, to slow the process down as much as possible, and to stay up and about as long as possible. Well, and what sensible thing is there left to say about this? I just don’t know now. Going for the here and now, and staying active as long as possible, living life by day or by hour. That is as far as I get for now. It was storming today, and not only at sea and on the shore. That is all for now.

Perhaps I shall write more here, for now we will recover from the blow, and then see if “living life” is an option we can live with.