⁇ Cancer light – Night as negotiator

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.”

⁇ Sleeping is a verb

In the hospital I discovered that sleeping is not a rest but a form of work. I couldn't lie down, so I slept sitting down, with a pillow as a neck support and a head that went on strike all the time. My nights consisted of ten-minute hare slaps, rarely extended to a glorious thirty. The nurses called it rest. I call it hell with a blanket. In the picture my most relaxed sleeping position in the hospital. And that wasn't even really sleeping.

“Anyone who has ever slept sitting knows that time is stretchy and mercilessly slow.”

⁇ At home in my own rhythm

At home I sleep better, although my sleep rhythm is not my own. It is completely determined by the working out of the painkillers. As soon as the morphine or paracetamol begins to wear out, my body awakens me with surgical precision. Not because I want to, but because the pain says so. My nights are now following a schedule that sounds like a military operation: morphine every seven hours, paracetamol every four hours. Between the two, I try to rest. Four hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like a wellness holiday, including the realization that peace and quiet can be revived at any time.

“Sometimes progress is no more than from two to four hours of sleep.”

⁇ Energy is a currency

Every move takes energy and my body guards that budget with the rigor of an accountant. Blowing my nose feels like mountaineering without oxygen, climbing the stairs is an expedition over Mount Everest but without a queue at the top and without the garbage along the route. Today I wanted to get up before ten o'clock, my body said kindly but decidedly: “Forget it but.’ (My body speaks poor English, but with conviction.) So I lay down, until my body and I were on the same course again. Since the energy balance is negative, it has to come from somewhere and my belly is shrinking. That's nice.

“Recovery is not a sprint, it is learning to walk with a body that is still in doubt.”

⁇ Small victories

This afternoon I ate a whole bowl of Skyr for the first time in days. Not a culinary highlight, but a triumph of magnitude. After that I massaged Sylvia, briefly, because even love needs a rest break nowadays. Every day is a little better. Not spectacular, but steady, as if my body is slowly learning that life is more than survival.

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