When Uncle Google is not your friend or "Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo"

Tonight we´re going to be philosophical. Okay we´re going to be YOLO, which is basically modern philosophy. :) Because I have done something stupid and have been faced with a part of my illness I tried to ignore as best as I could (and some of you also I would guess).

Don´t google that shit!

I googled my cancer. Yep. Great idea. I don´t know what I expected, maybe that he had a cool Twitter account or something or I could befriend him on Facebook (if I still had a FB account that is ;))? Well, he doesn´t so nevermind googling him! What I DID find was an informative medical book about malignant lymphomas. You see where this is going right? I don´t want to go into too much detail, I think there is a reason my doctors haven´t been talking to me about all that stuff that was in there but there were reeeally nice diagrams and stuff showing you the "survival" rates of T-cell lymphomas and statistics and numbers. But what are numbers anyway, right?

Reading about "high recurrence rate" and "poor prognosis" it hit me right in the face. Fuck, I have cancer. People die of cancer. Somehow I missed that connection before (she said shaking her broccoli brain in astonishment).

In your face, bitch!

That´s a little bit like a smoker trying to ignore the fact that he COULD get cancer. "Yeah, sure, smoking causes cancer, but for sure not me, right? RIGHT??" Yeah, right dude, it´s never you. The point of my little metaphor- the smoker will keep smoking cause he can convince himself of the fact that statistics are always for other people. And that´s exactly what I did, too (well not the smoking but the keeping on). :) The average age for getting my cancer is around 70, the patients usually have so-called comorbidity and are not fit enough for my kind of treatment plan. Most of them don´t face a long life anyway. I´m no part of these statistics cause I´m simply too young and healthy (beside having cancer of course ;)).

Greatest philosopher that ever lived!

But still, I have a life threatening illness with statistically poor outcome. I have to deal with death and all the fears that come with it. But that actually doesn´t make you think about dying, but about living. About all the things you should do, the people you care about and the gifts that have been given to you. You reconsider the priorities you´ve set in life before. And you seriously don´t care when eating Lakritze for lunch if you feel like it (I´ll be thinking about my "after-cancer-body" when I´m in complete remission, thank you ;)).

Dealing with all these thoughts changes you as a person. I will never be the same as before the cancer. I will always be scared when I have night sweat, my left side hurts or I feel strangely sick. If you have been so close to death it stays with you. But not just with me. I know that for most of you this is the first time you are confronted with all of this as well. We´re so young, we shouldn´t be thinking about death. But I need to and I´m afraid you too if you want to stay with me. Because this is now part of my life and it will be for the coming years. So please, if you feel like talking about this, you can talk to me. And you should because we´re in this together, right? :)

P.S.:

Bucket List!!

P.P.S.: The latin citation is from Epicurus, a Greek philosopher. He has some great views on death if you´re interested in that just google the letter to Menoeceus.