Surgery day

My surgery on the thumb went well. I went to the hospital at six in the morning. All by myself if I may add so. I got a room and put on the sexy nightgown AND those amazing socks and then they gave me the happy pill. This is when it started to go wrong. What you have to know is that I had been looking forward to actualy see the operating room and watch them do my surgery. I did not expect to see them operating on my hand but I wanted to see them all dressed up (especially for me) and see how it actually worked. What I did not know is that the happy pill makes you sleepy and I completely drifted off. The last thing I remember is wondering how many needles where in my arm (I was afraid of the needle that had to go into my armpit to knock my arm out) and when I woke up I was in recovery and kept falling asleep. I AM SO DISAPOINTED! When my dad called to see when he could pick me up I told him how disapointed I was and not how surgery went. Now it is monday and I am still not over it! Who knows if I ever get another chance?

The weekend was quite painful, but I still went to see my friends. I guess I am used to be drugged up because of my leukemia. Today I spent my day typing my term paper with one hand and now I am frustrated because I am a sports addict but cannot do anything because of my red (from the disinfection), swollen, hurting arm. Arg!

An awful, amazing day

After the mess of the last couple of days I was NOT in the mood to go and see another doctor. But I had to because my hand (thumb) still looks kind of strange. So I got up, called Hendrik to see if he had made any progress with his doctors and went to the hospital by train. I hate trains. I commuted to university for 2 years and I am so fed up. I got registered at the hospital and waited for my turn to see the doctor. and waited and waited and waited. After almost three hours he was finally able to see me. He looked at my thumb, looked at the MRT pictures and shook his head. What he basicly said was that I did not have a chance that my thumb would repair without surgery. Yeah! Great news after 2 weeks of wearing this cast which slowly starts to smell. Ok, so I got scheduled for surgery on friday. That was the awful part.

As always when I visit the hospital I went up to the pediatric cancer ward to see if I could meet some of my old friends. I met a nurse who chatted a bit with me and introduced me to some parents and kids. This is probably my favorite part about visiting my old prison as I call it. I talk to them and tell them that I have been where they are now and today I am fine. I live a normal life and the cruel therapy is absolutely worth it. Life is great!

Then I went home, told my parents about the surgery and since it was unbelievably warm for february I went jogging. This was amazing. I have missed the fresh air, the warmth, the forest and the birds so much during the last month. I wish I had brought my camera. Nature was beautiful. There aren't any leaves on the trees yet and in the shade there is still snow. This run gave me the strength I had asked for a few days ago. While running I was able to forget my thumb, Hendrik's sickness and all the work I am supposed to do for university but do not have the time and patience for. Now I am positive that we will all manage to get out of this quickly and stronger than we are now.

A prayer

Dear God,

I don't know why I write down my prayers here. I probably shouldn't. And I should use a language I can actually speak. But as you know I don't like this language.

HELP! Sometimes I ask myself where you are? How can you see all this pain on earth without interfering?Where were you last night? when I was lying on the floor crying? Why do you let all these things happen to Hendrik and why do you allow him to make these decisions? And most of all: What shall I do? Please help me to make the right decision! Please give me strength for the next days. Please send me and Hendrik people who can say and do the right things! Please let Hendrik see that he needs help and you. Please let me be able to smile again soon and please make me somehow be able to focus on my term paper. Please be with Hendrik's mom, sister and uncle. Please allow me to sleep tonight.

Thank you for the wonderful life I am given!

Thanks for being who you are!

Anne

30 day challenge: 22

day 22- how have you changed in the past 2 years?

Some things have improved, some not so much

Two years ago I had just finished my third semester studying biology and English and still had the hope that I would some day like biology and enjoy studying. Today, I look forward to the day I'll finish studying and don't think I'll miss too much (certainly not the studying part).

But by going through some of the hard stuff I have become my best friend and learned to sometimes, certainly not always, put my needs first. I learned how I function and what I need. I also learned who my friends are and who are just aquaintances. I am certainly more independent and don't feel as insecure as I used to.

My relationship with God has improved a lot. I found a church group I like which teaches me more about His word.

I got to know Hendrik a lot better and still continue to do. Moving in with him has not always been easy, but I would do it again.

30 day challenge: 21

day 21- your favorite show

About a year ago I discovered the Ellen Generes show and I laugh my head off when I watch videos on Youtube, but I cannot watch the whole thing since I live in a funny country called Germany.

So my favorite show is a German one called "Wetten, dass..." (translation makes no sense). A very famous talkmaster invites international stars and people send in bets that they can do certain things. Crazy stuff like recognizing cows from the noise they make when eating or climbing out of a pool up to a diving board with the help of toilet paper. Interested?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bODLZLTFtM0

It's been on forever. But in December 2010 a (handsome) young guy bet that he could jump over driving cars (nothing unusual). He managed to jump over the first one, but something went wrong with the second one. He has been paralyzed from the head down since that day. Everybody was shocked and the famous talkmaster, Thomas Gottschalk (funny guy) decided to quit.

He had his last show in December and so far there has been no one willing or able to do his job.

I grew up watching th show. First I was allowed to watch till 9 (it airs one Saturday evening a month), then till ten and man was I proud when I could watch it until the end. I have fond memories of watching it. And now at least Thomas Gottschalk will not be there anymore

30 day challenge: 20

day twenty-How important you think education is

Education opens the world. The more you know, the more you can understand how things work and the more you can participate. Education is not only what you learn in class, but also what you learn by having conversations with others or visiting places.

I have always been very ambitious when it comes to school. In school I was used to being one of the best students. In university this changed a little and (I hate to admit), but this was hard. My parents always supported me schoolwise. They helped with homework and if I needed a book I got it. My entire family values education a lot. All my realtives went to university. My grandpa even managed to get a scholarship after the war and education was extremely expensive. I have 7 cousins. 5 study medicine and my little brother will too. My dad always asks if I have enough money so I don't have to work too much. He work prefer if I did not work at all so I would concentrate more on school, but I feel like I already do enough.

Have a great week!

30 day challenge: 19

day 19- Disrespecting your parents

I owe my parents everything. Without them I would not be where I am today. They have always supported me, they always have been and always will be there for me. They always made sure that me and my brother were happy. They had endless talks with teachers and probably worried more about me than I ever did. I can ALWAYS talk to them. No matter what it is. They are the best parents God could have given me. And I hope I can be an equally good parent to my kids.

Hendrik's relationship to his mother (his dad passed away when he was 7) is entirely different. I do not want to get into any details. Mistakes were made on both sides. And while I often can understand Hendrik's anger towards his mother, I always remind him of the fact that she is his mother and therefore deserves respect. She loves him (despite her hurtful actions and words) and certainly put a lot of work in him. I know for sure that she spent nights worrying if something was wrong with Hendrik. So my view on disrespecting parents is that you should always pay respect to your parents, because there is no bond like that between a parent and a child. If your parents abused you that's a different story, of course. But parents stay in your life, friends might leave.

30 day challenge: 18

day 18- your beliefs

I believe

-in God

-in the power of prayers

- in the existence of soul mates out there

- love, family and friendship

- Honesty and sometimes silence is the best policy

- Positive attitude

- concentrate on what you can do, not what you cannot do

- the power of a good night's sleep

-following my promises

- in something good in everything I see

30 day challenge: 17

After my hospital episode I am back now. Somehow I did not really like the topics of the last days. Did not even know what Tumblr is, had to look it up.

day 17-Your highs and lows of the last year

Februar 2011: 6 exams in 10 days and I did it. Did not postpone a single one. Yeah! Exhausted but happy afterwards.

March 2011: Really enjoyed my internship at the High School. Loved the teaching and definitely look forward to the day I am FINALLY a teacher!

April 2011: A new semester starts and we had an unusual warm spring. Had lots of fun in the sun and enjoyed every secong of it.

May 2011: Lots of work for university, can't wait for summer.

June: Field trip to a very remote place somewhere in the east. New definition of the term "Middle of nowhere". But fun to spend an entire week with my best friend.

July: University is finally over. But the term papers are still there.

August: Some good days. We go to Berlin, but then Hendrik kisses another girl. I lose all trust (and hope)

September: I study for a very hard Biology exam and only occasionally talk to Hendrik. Dread the time ahead of me.

October: Fresh start with Hendrik. Start a new job and the new semester starts.

November: Struggle with Hendrik and the cold and dark part of the year.

December: Christmas and christmas break make me happy. Hope for a better year 2012.

January 2012: Study quite a bit for university and do research for my term paper.

Frustration

Tuesday night I fell UP the stairs. Yes, not down, but up. My thumb hurt so bad and since I was scheduled to work on Wednesday I went to the ER. They did an X-ray and said the bone was fine, but the ligament might be torn. Back at midnight.

Woke up early the next morning to call in sick. Then I studied in the morning and had an magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) scheduled for 2pm. Do you know how hard it is to not move your finger at all for 20 minutes? Turns out my ligament is torn. Off to the hospital again. Wait 2 hours and then I am given the option of either surgery or a cast for the next six weeks with the chance that it does not heal. Get home, call parents, discuss. Decide to take the cast. This morning I went to my biology class, teacher does not show up. Drink coffee and talk for 2 hours. Go to hospital AGAIN (third day in a row). Get my cast. Write my sociolinguistics exam. Get the results of another exam. Head home. Starts snowing. Totally worn out. Can you tell?

No swimming for 6 weeks.....how?

30 day challenge: 14

(completely forgot to publish it after writing)

day 14- your earliest memory

My first memory is of the day I got the best gift of my entire life: my cute, little brother (who is not cute and little at all anymore)! I slept in the bed in my daddys study (which would later become my brother's room) and when I woke up in the morning my grandma told me I had a brother. I was 2 and a half at that time. I remember that at first I could not grab the concept of mom having another baby and was a little confused by it, but soon I started to love him with my entire heart. I can proudly say that I was the best big sister you can imagine. I looked after him so much and in the years to come we developed such a strong bond that we declined play- dates with other kids to play with each other. There's even a photo of my pushing his diapered butt up the the stairs (the pictures are at my parents house so I cannot show you). I was very supportive (and still am today).

30 day challenge: 13

day 13- A place you would love to move or visit

When I was 16 I got the amazing chance to go to South Africa for a month. My host family lived near Cape Town and when the plane circled the Table Mountain my breath was taken. Underneath me I could see the sparkling ocean and every house seemed to have a pool. This must be heaven! And I was not disapointed. I loved the malls, the perfect weather (definitely was born in the wrong country) and the beaches. Cape town is surrounded by mountains which make it so special. I learned to love the relaxed South African lifestyle and the friendly people who always were so happy to meet me. I visited many places in South Africa and two years later I got to stay for three entire months. I am so glad I got to see this beautiful country which offers so much more than poor people and racism. If I get the chance I would love to return and stay for a while. Did I mention the German school in Cape Town has a pool which overlooks the entire city? Wouldn't it be perfect if I could be a teacher there one day?

30 day challenge: 12

day 12- Bullet your whole day

Why does this have to be a sunday? Nothing really happens on sundays...

I got up around half past 9 and had breakfast with my brother (I'm home for the weekend). He talks a lot about his internship at the psychiatric hospital and I am happy that he likes it. In 2011 he was often so sad because of his medical issues. Then I studied for about 3 hours. I'm writing an exam in Sociolinguistics next week. After the studying I wanted to relax a bit and went to the internet to read a few blogs and talk to some people on facebook. Afterwards me and Nico cooked lunch, or rather he cooked and I watched him cooking (he's a great cook). After lunch Hendrik came to visit and we just chilled on the couch for about two hours. Made me happy. Afterwards I summarized a few texts for my paper on "The Idea of ideal kingship in Middle English romances" (boring x 3) and talked to my parents who came back from their weekend trip. Now, it's seven o'clock and I'll take a shower, go back to our appartment by train, read a bit and hopefully go to bed early to have power for the upcoming week. Boring sunday!

30 day challenge: 11

Yesterday's post did something to me. Writing those memories down brought a feeling back. This morning when I was taking my pills I actually thought about the reasons why I have to take them. Last night J's face slipped in and out of my dreams. At one point I woke up and thought I was in the hospital again. Although, some of theses memories are painful, I will write about them once this challenge is done.

Day 11- Put your iPod on shuffle and write ten songs that pop up

1. I got a feeling (David Guetta)- love this song because my brother performed this with his classes on his prom.

2. 3 Tage wach (3 days awake)-Listened to it a lot when I graduated

3. Milow- You and Me

4. Obtener si- Shakira

5.Gossip-Heavy Cross

6. Carneval de Paris- Dario G

7. Boy in the Wall- R.E.M.

8. Prayer for a friend- Casting Crowns (I even wrote ablog about this song http://justme-anne.blogspot.com/2011/10/prayer-for-friend-casting-crown.html)

9. Die Toten Hosen- Nur zu Besuch (Just visiting)- my song when I visit J's grave

10. The Lazy Song- Bruno Mars

30 day challenge: 10 (or leukemia story part 1)

Day 10: Discuss your first love and first kiss

WARNING LONG POST!

Ok, so there is no getting around the leukemia subject anymore. So far I avoided it in my blog. But as I hinted several days ago I was diagnosed with leukemia at 13, almost exactly 10 years ago. This anniversary lead me to think about the stupid cancer more again. I will do a blog series about it once this challenge is done. I felt like I should write it down forever, but never got around to do so.

To answer today's challenge I need to give you a first glimpse in my world back then. I was one very sick girl and one day while recieving more chemicals than I ever thought were good for me I met a very sick boy. OOOOH! I never felt inclined to make friends in my prison called hospital since I mostly spent my time sleeping, vomitting and driving my family crazy. Usually in this sequence. Sometimes they offered to do crafts in the afternoon where one could meet other kids, but crafts and me....does not work. However, J was a different case. We met and became best friends. Whenever we felt up to it, we visited each other's rooms. We talked about everything. Our families could only stay during the day, during the night we were alone. During our conversations we made plans what we wanted to do with our lives once we got out of the hospital and he was the only one I talked to about dying. This was probably because he was the only one who could completely understand what I was feeling since he was walking the same path. We also made up the vomit charts (what not to eat and what to eat during chemo.)

EAT: 1. apple sauce because it comes out easily 2. Banana but chew carefully 3. small noodles with a lot of sauce since they don get stuck

DON't EAT: 1.gummi bears since they get stuck in your throat or even nose. hurts! 2. chicken and fries (basicly any meat) because it is hard to get out and the smell makes you even more sick 3. fruit (except banana) since they get stuck and they burn like crazy in your throat

One day I sat in his room and we talked about the boy and girl thing. We both agreed that we never felt romantic about each other. He was just a VERY good friend. Still, he wondered how it felt to be kissed. He admitted that he had thought about it a lot recently and then, without me expecting it, he asked me to kiss him. I agreed. I can't say it was the best kiss ever, but it was nice :) We never kissed again. Our nurses would have freaked out if they had known we were basicly exchanging germs.

On my last day of chemo he came to my room (he had already finished his last round) and gave me a huge hug and said we would start living again now.

However, while I slowly started to participate in my normal live again, his cancer came back. His fight started anew. I went to visit him as often as I could and felt gulity for being healthy each time. J fought as hard as he could. He got a cell transplantation which meant that nobody could touch him for about a month. But after several months it became apparent that everything the doctors had to offer would not help. He was given 3 months to live. My heart broke that day. I told my mother that I wanted to die instead of him and I meant it. Living without him was not an option.
During his last weeks my parents took me to visit him every weekend (2 hour drive one way). It was, without a doubt, the most horrible time of my life. I. could. not. loose. him. Before he died he asked me to take care of his parents, whatever this meant. And I told him that I wanted to name my first son after him. I still want and it was one of the first things I discussed with Hendrik. He made me promise that I would still live my life without him and wait a very long time until I came to see him. He promised to watch over me until then. The day he died I lay on my bed crying all day. The pain was too much to bear.

At the next scan I did not care about my results. If they had shown that my cancer was back, I would have happily taken it. While my heart does not heal and the pain will never subside I learnt to live with it. I visit his parents on his birthday and write emails. I once asked them if they did not hate me for being alive instead of him. They replied that while it hurt them to see me and makes their heart ache for the things J is not allowed to experience, they always regarded our cases as two different ones. They said they were thankful that at least I got to survive.
Sorry, this blog is a bit (a tiny bit) off topic, but I could not adequately tell you about my first kiss without all the other information and I wanted to complete J's story tonight.



It's never goodbye, it's always see you later!

30 day challenge: 9

Day 9- how do you hope your future will be like

I already discussed a lot of that when I answered the question where I would like to be in 10 years. Basicly, I hope to have a nice little, big family, a supporting husband and as much fun and contact with my brother and parents as possible. I hope I like teaching and can do it for many years, I hope to buy a house somewhen. I don't hope to be rich, but I would like to be able to afford a nice lifestyle for my family.I would like to travel as much as possible, meet many new people and basicly just lead my little happy life. I don't dream of anything fancy. As long as me and the ones I love are healthy, happy and fed I'm content. My biggest dream is to one day, many years from now, to sit on my porch, next to my husband surrounded by my kids and grandkids and watch the sun set and be able to look back at a long and happy life.

30 day challenge: 8

day 8- A moment you felt the most satisfied with your life

There are often moments when I feel everything is all right, that I work hard, do well in university,my family is well and my boyfriend loves me. But there has never been a feeling like the one I had on the day I graduated from High school. I had excelled in school and graduated with excellent marks. On this day I finally got the prize for working hard. I enjoyed my swimming life. I had the best friends ever and had so much fun with them. I had my boyfriend and we were still madly in love. Ahead of me was a careless summer. For the next weeks I lived at the pool and often partied at night. Then I went to Bulgaria with hendrik where we spent awesome two weeks at the beach drinking cocktails in the evening.
In August I went on a school trip with my old school. We stayed at the North Sea for almost three weeks with first grades 7 and then 8. Me and a very good friend had so much fun with the teachers although I missed Hendrik like crazy. We were responsible for offering activities in the afternoon and chasing the kids to bed at night which was so much fun. It was the summer of my life, summer 2008. Me and my friend would sing the song "All summer long" by Kid Rock constantly . I could not believe when the summer came to an end and I had to start university.....







The pictures are enough to make me smile!