Breast cancer: what happens after the healing?

If someone asks me today how I am, it always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Yes, how are you? Almost two years after the cancer diagnosis? The quick, simple answer is: I'm fine. Unobserved, I can no longer answer. I always count on an expectation of the questioner. And that hurts. Of course, people want me to be fine. They are happy that I coped so well with it. But they research a bit more deeply in my facial expressions than they used to, silencing a little longer before moving on to another topic.

Sometimes, when I'm tired and resigned, I say, I do not know. And that's the whole truth. Because I would have to say: The radiation consequences have not quite subsided. Now and then, slight, pulling pains that remind. But I do not need that. The cancer is present every day. Everything is different. My death became conceivable.

It resisted, the whole me.

Even if the disease leaves me alone for a long time: My body tends to, so he will say goodbye in this way. That does not have to be any more than healthy people. No, I do not think that I will soon be gone in the universe and nachsegle as stardust of my last love. I can do anything too. Sport, dance, love, put on tight sweaters, drink wine. I have not experienced the feared old age. The misery of the body has mobilized my soul forces. It resisted, the whole me.

I am grateful for the healing of breast cancer

I'm thankful for what I can do. I know myself, my strength is better now. What I always strived for was: love yourself ... the whole psycho program to the contentment - with the cancer it started as if by itself. I adore my healing powers, I enjoy my thinking and feeling. Because: I am here. After a great danger. Largely intact. A survivor. I do not forget. Every single day I survive the predictable disaster. Breast cancer is a systemic and chronic disease. The tumor they cut out of me was just the symptom. The disease itself can not be operated. You have to live with that.

Today ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN author Vera Sandberg sees her illness as part of her biography. She has written a moving book about her experiences: "Cancer and everything is different", ChroniquesDuVasteMonde book published by Diana, 16.90 euros (for example, www.amazon.de)

So when I eat biscuits I think: Never mind, you eat enough salad otherwise. When I'm jogging, I think, well, that helps you. When I love, I think, how wonderful that this is still possible. When I hear the farewell song from Marianne Rosenberg's jazz CD, I cry. "If ick jeh ...", she sings. Unsentimental and proud and Berlin-like.

All feelings have got a different color. Dominance is gratitude. New is modesty. A bit of shame is that it has hit others much harder that I got off lightly. Omnipresent is fear. Do not panic, it's like a quiet endless tune. Every night I have to swallow a pill. Every evening the memory. For five years. I suspect her. There are empirical data that women taking them are less likely to relapse. So here with the increased chance to be spared.

I was the half full glass

Just like the radiation in the penultimate autumn. Nobody knew if it was necessary for me. It should increase security by a few percentage points. Eight weeks into the clinic every night, naked under the ray gun. And think: Thank goodness you do not need chemo. Thank God you are not the woman in the adjoining cabin, bald-headed, on staggering legs. Her driver always waited outside with her handbag. I drove myself. I could do everything. Except to be sure to be healthy.

The OP itself was not bad. Awakening from anesthesia, a girlfriend by the bed. Flowers on the table, a few tubes on the wound. No appetite. Every day a little bit stronger, visit, eat something. On the fifth day discharge. Back in everyday life. Thin skin, rough soul. Yes I'm fine. Because I do not have cancer now. The doctor tells me every three months in the control: You are healthy. The probability that he will come back is very low.

Oh, I'm bad at repressing. What is better: To put oneself in a stupid position and say, I am healthy, there is nothing left? Or face the facts and say, I do not know, no one knows for sure? I have to live with what was and what will be. I always saw myself as the one with the half full glass. I thought so until July 13, 2007.

Cancer, my stepfather, my uncle, had two friends. Not me! Then came the call, on Friday, the 13th. I had asked the doctor; otherwise you will not learn something like that on the phone.But I was sure she would give the all-clear after a lump in her right breast was examined more closely. I wanted to go on time on a business trip. Did not think for a second that it got me.

Today I am very surprised. Ignorance? Overconfidence? Something like that. Because the first thing I felt in addition to the panic, was offense. Because my body let me down. That nothing higher carries me, can save. Now it was about cell heaps, not about the beautiful soul. Not about skills, personality - just about existence. A frightening experience for a well-guarded middle European in the middle years who can look back on a contented existence and expect it. All security was gone. Nowhere stop.

Did I have to fall to be caught?

And there came help. Unexpectedly. People joined me, were there for me. Also the man at my side; he laughed with me whenever possible. Everything I wanted, be saved, appreciated and loved: I got that now. As a patient. Could you show it now? Could I see it now? Accept? Allow?

I got richer after the shock. It's a new, different security. Immortal, undamaged, that's not me. But I'm not alone either. Especially at the moment when my ability and my attractiveness - I was always proud of both - had dropped to a low point, I found love, friendship and solidarity.

Did I have to fall to be caught? Being attackable for protection? All that. In a flash, imagination was to be distinguished from the true being. The cancer was the invitation to become more me; the permission to let me in, the cry for help in the world. And she helped. I know great doctors now, my friends have more than passed the test, my companion has come closer, my work environment remained stable. More than I could expect.

And that's why I'm mostly fine, if somebody in my face should search for grief and fear again. I'm actually the one with the half full glass. Well, there is something else in it than I once thought.