⁇ Cancer light – The night I was looking for an angel

15:33 The bell that no one wants to hear

It was a call on Friday afternoon at 15:33. I was just preparing a kwis beer tasting. In a few minutes my afternoon changed from light to heavy. Since then, I've been trying to write down everything that happens. Not to get pity, but to keep my head and heart together. These blogs are my way of understanding, sharing and showing how I deal with this, sometimes seriously, sometimes with humor, but always really.

“Life does not call in advance to ask if it is convenient.”

⁇ Step by step

Step by step. That's what Sylvia said to me. This was the beginning of our adventure: simple, determined and frankly a little optimistic. And she was right, it goes with steps. Not linear, never neat. Sometimes I move a few forwards, then two backwards. There is rhythm in it that feels chaotic, but apparently that's part of it.

There are days when I think: ‘Watch us go!’ And there are days when I just lie down.
One of those little victories is that I sleep better these days. I no longer wake up in the middle of the night from the pain, but only when it is time for the next round of medications. That sounds like progress, and it is. Only now it is true that waking up always goes hand in hand with pain. Not a dreamy transition to the day, but the realization that I'm just too late with swallowing. Still, it feels good that my body at least takes a rest between the fights.

“Sometimes progress is not that something hurts less, but that you can rest from it.”

⁇ The night with too many thoughts

Last night, one of them turned everything upside down. I dreamed something vague about lost things, as if I couldn't find something important. When I woke up, I felt like I had run a marathon in a sauna. Everything hurt, my body stuck to the sheet, and the painkillers were laughing at me for two hours from the bedside table.

There was only this strange thought: “I'm looking for an angel to watch Mandy.”
And all of a sudden I calmed down.
It's very strange. For I do not believe in angels, not in mysticism, at most in oxygen between heaven and earth. But at that moment it felt comforting, as if that thought grabbed something that I had lost myself.

‘Sometimes rest comes in a form you don’t believe but recognise.’

⁇ The weight of worries that are not mine

The pain is heavy, but what concerns me the most is Sylvia. She wears this whole year as if it's a backpack that's getting heavier, full of practical things, but especially full of emotions that don't have a manual. She's brave, but I can see how tired she gets from being brave.

Fortunately, she has decided not to work for the time being. Let's take a breath. Let's look for solid ground.
I hope that people around her also see that, that her strength is not endless, that positivity must also be nourished.

Be kind to her.
She deserves it.

“Strong people are often just people who have been strong for too long.”

⁇ For now

For now, this is where I am. The days are rolling on, with painkillers and sometimes an inexplicable smile for nothing. Maybe that's the heart of it all: Learn to live with what you don't understand, without letting it weigh what it doesn't have to.

‘Heaviness may have light. And light sometimes weighs surprisingly much.”