That was an impossible task; How could she say goodbye to her almost 3 year old sons? Perhaps there was one last option, her doctors suggested. An experimental immunotherapy had just become available. Who knows, it could mean something to her.
And then a miracle happened: after two infusions, the tumor marker, a substance that the body produces in response to cancer, appeared to decrease sharply. Eighteen months later, almost all the spots on the scan appeared to have disappeared. To the astonishment of her doctors. ‘They hadn’t even hung streamers yet. But my oncologist said: ‘We really can’t see anything on the scan anymore. All tumors have calcified or even completely disappeared. Just pick up the thread of your life again.”
In the meantime, congratulations from those around her poured in. How wonderful this was. After seven years of cancer, Claudia was able to get back to work, back to her old life. While she herself was overcome by despondency. ‘Because how was that supposed to happen, picking up my old life again? After so long? There was hardly anything left of that life. It felt like a goose chase: return to the start. While I had to reinvent everything.
‘Before my illness I had my own company. But that life back then was a coat that no longer suited me. I had suffered so much damage from all the treatments. I still suffered from epilepsy and was exhausted. I felt like I had to learn to walk all over again.’
2023-12-13 05:41:40
#person #oneway #ticket #accept #life #beautiful #Volkskrant
