During his cancer treatment in Nijmegen, astronomer Jordy Davelaar had only one goal: to return to New York, the city where he had just started his dream job. “I promised myself that I would enjoy the things I do even more.”
‘We are thinking of cancer’, Jordy Davelaar was suddenly told last year by his GP in Nijmegen. After his PhD at Radboud University, he had just started a dream job at the University of Columbia in New York, and happened to be back in the Netherlands to celebrate Christmas with family.
What followed was a roller coaster ride, a period full of fear, powerlessness and uncertainty. The mass that had lodged behind Davelaar’s chest turned out to be a rare form of germ cell cancer. As far as you can talk about happiness in such a situation, it turned out to be a form that can be treated relatively well with chemotherapy. Davelaar, as an astronomer a man of numbers, knew that his chances of survival are 70 percent.
Davelaar recovered during chemotherapy in Nijmegen. The large tumor shrank and split into two parts, as the scans showed later. The doctors saw no need to treat him any further. Physically it also got better. Davelaar managed to walk twenty kilometers last summer, a campaign that raised 4500 euros for the Radboud Oncology Fund.
Then the United States also travel ban lifted, all the signals were green for a return. On November 8, Davelaar walked through the arrivals hall of JFK Airport, got into a yellow taxi and was driven to Manhattan. “When I drove over the Kennedy Bridge and saw that skyline on the left, I got goosebumps. It was just unreal that I was back.’
How are you now?
‘Quite good. I am now back in New York for a short period of time. On December 10 (this interview took place earlier, ed.) I will fly back to the Netherlands to celebrate the holidays with my family and girlfriend. I also have a new scan in Nijmegen. Hopefully I’ll get positive news again, but it’s still nicer to have my loved ones close by.’
‘It will be a while before I have given everything a place’
“After arriving in New York, it took me more energy than usual to deal with the jet lag. I’m still in the recovery phase. My energy runs out faster. I notice that the recovery took a lot of strength not only physically, but also mentally. It is now important to listen to my body. That means I can’t say ‘yes’ to everything. For example, a colleague invited me to celebrate Thanksgiving in Massachusetts. That’s a five-hour journey. Very nice, but I can’t afford that at the moment.’
Have you already realized what has happened in the past year?
‘Yes. I also try to reflect on that by occasionally replaying the film in my head. I am less lived now, have more time for myself. What this all means to me in the long run, how it’s changed me as a person, that’s an ongoing process. It will be a while before I have given everything a place.’
Do you experience the city differently now than before your illness?
‘I pay more attention to the things I do, I promised myself that I would enjoy it even more. I attended a basketball and ice hockey game for the first time. Besides, I’ve never been in the Met (short for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ed.). I’m checking all kinds of things off my bucket list that I didn’t have time for before.’
‘In addition, it’s just really nice to be able to go back to the office, to be able to meet colleagues. That is much more pleasant than having to do everything from your living room, completely from a different time zone. I am now on the thirteenth floor of the Columbia University campus. When I look outside, I see the Hudson.”
Are you really looking forward to your next scan, or do you dare to look further ahead?
‘I notice that I still have a few tricks up my sleeve when making new plans. Provided the result is good, then…’
“Nevertheless, I have a lot of plans for next year. If corona allows it – that other important precondition, in addition to my health – I will go to California for one or two months in the spring to participate in a scientific exchange program. So I immediately said: I’m going to take surf lessons. Hopefully there won’t be any kinks in the cable.’
Cancer damages confidence in your own body, you said. Are you slowly regaining that confidence?
‘Of course sometimes feelings of fear run through my head. I try not to drive myself crazy and look rationally at my feelings. Do I have any symptom that may indicate something is not right? Am I feeling strange things? The answer is now no. So objectively I know that there are no direct indications that anything crazy will come out of the scan. But of course there are no guarantees.’
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