At the age of twenty-one, I’m taking my first steps into adulthood and finally living independently. I’ve moved into an apartment shared with a fellow university student who is never there. However, this morning I find that my new home has another tenant I didn’t know about.
I enter the…
Most events in life can be categorized in one of two ways: a good time, or a good story.
― Margot Leitman, Long Story Short
This quote summarizes my current philosophy towards life. I’ve had plenty of shitty things happen to me throughout the years (read more about it below!)…
“It’s good that you brought your partner along this time,” the pulmonologist told me as he called us into his office.
Matthias and I shared a look that said, Uh-oh.
Our butts had barely touched the padded chairs when he gave us the news.
“It’s cancer.”
The words fell into…
When my oncologist advised me to start chemotherapy, he gave me two options.
“Chemo option number 1 will not lead to hair loss,” he said. “Chemo option number 2, which is in combination with immunotherapy, will lead to hair loss, two to three weeks after the start of treatment.”
I…
Tânia was the first person I ever lent money to. For the last twenty years, she’s had an outstanding debt with me of 1 euro and 20 cents. A part of me still expects her to show up on my doorstep one day to settle that debt. …
I have stage IV lung cancer. Even though chemo is the classical cancer treatment everyone knows about, I managed to avoid it for over a year with TKI medication. However, this June, the time finally came when I decided with my oncologist to undergo chemo. Chemo is fucking scary. …
Hair. Strands of protein sticking out of your body surfaces. For some evolutionary reason, certain strands grow longer than others. On top of that, most human societies worldwide decided that for practical or esthetic reasons, some hairs should be cut, others shaved, others left to their own means. It all…
When I was diagnosed with lung cancer last year, I took two days off from my data analyst job to process the news. On Monday, I was back to working full time.
No way. I was crying in the bathroom between meetings. I could barely focus long enough to read…
The first time I went to Grandma Lurdes’s for lunch after my mother died seemed like any other time. Like nothing had changed.
I was 12. I sat down at the oval table in the living room, together with my 10-year-old sister, my dad, and his parents. In between spoonfuls…
Finny stared at the screen of her phone, showing 7:59 PM. When it changed to 8:00 PM, she slipped the phone in her jeans front pocket and started ringing the doorbell. …
