The post that I promised not to write

I promised myself I would not do it. I promised myself the next post would be a happy post. I promised myself that this friday would be like any other. I promised not to let the date get me. I promised to see the positive in it. But here I am. In the past year this little blog became the place where I could talk. Honestly talk and admit how hard certain things are when I wish they were not. But sometimes writing a post is just like a confession. It helped me so much to write my cancer story down. So here I am again.
If I could erase one day from my memory it would be the 24th of August 2004. I had just turned sixteen. The cancer nightmare seemed finally over. I could run again, my hair looked halfway decent and i was able to enjoy meals after 2 years of almost eating nothing at all. Life seemed to start again. But during this summer I had to say good bye to one of the best friends I ever had. The only person in the entire universes who was able to understand me since almost 2 and a half years ago. You were God sent. You made me able to endure so much. Together we could. On this day Joel died. We had been cancer buddies. Got to know each other when we had dark shadows under our eyes, no hair on our heads, had tubes coming out of our chest and arms and vomitted non stop. I could see how beautiful you were right from the beginning. You were my first real guy friend. I confessed my darkest thoughts to you. We were completely honest. To be able to live and watch you die was the hardest thing I ever was forced to do. I loved you like my brother. 8 years ago I sobbed till my eyes hurt. Physical pain is nothing compared to the pain I felt on that day. I have thought of you every single day since then. I have had imaginary conversations with you. I have dreamed of meeting you again. I took you everywhere. I started dating Hendrik and wondered what you would think about it. I went to university and asked myself if you were proud of me up there. I met your parents countless times and asked myself if you thought I was behaving correctly. I watched the sky at night and asked myself if you could see me. But I kept my promises. All of them. I enjoy my life as much as I can and I try to take care of your family. Tomorrow I will go and see them. Im scared as always. I still feel bad for being alive instead of you. I wonder how they cope with the pain they feel when I can almost not cope with mine although I only knew you for such a short amount of time. And I am still keeping my promise you laughed so hard about when I told you. I still will name my first son after you. I just hope my family and yours will not die from shock when they hear about it :) I hope you have a great heaven birthday.

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

Some day I will move to a small island where they have no doctors!

Last week I had my cancer scans (if you are interested in my cancer story go back to March). It's been more than 10 years now, but I still have to go back once a year to get tortured. I keep postponing it so I have my check up in the summer although I was originally diagnosed in January (if I keep postponing it a little bit each year, I eventually will have to go through one less scan).
Usually hendrik accompanies me, but since he is unavailable right now, my mom had the pleasure to come with me to my favorite hospital. I dread these days since they let all the memories come back and you are scared since there might be something wrong. I have a ritual whenever I enter the cancer ward. I always go to the bathroom immeadiately and puke my guts out since the smell is enough to make me sick. Then I get poked by about 5 million needles, get a chest X- ray and then comes the best part. I get to put on one of those sexy hospital night gowns and receive a pill that makes me kind of sleep. I say kind of since you get sleepy, but you are still awake. Next I meet my favorite doctor in the entire world (the one who convinced me that I would live), but at this point I am not able to adequately greet him. This has to wait since he has a needle the size of my litlle finger in his hand and is about to poke me into my hip bone (bone marrow test). He needs to use all his force for this and it hurts like hell. This year I was especially emotional (maybe because the past year was so crappy) and I started bawling my eyes out. I completely lost it. Although I was drugged up quite a bit, I was able to sob and lots of it. I remember that some nice people tried to console me, but it did not work. Only my mommy could. I'm such a baby.
After an hour it was time to speak to my doctor friend (I forgive quickly). Of course my scans were clear (thank you God). The main point of this chat was to figure out the right medicine for me. I take about 8 pills every day and absolutely hate them. They make me loose my appetite and I throw up pretty easily. This is the reason I have very skinny arms although I do so much sport.I cannot get any muscles and it used to be frustrating because during my swimming years I never had enough strength. I don't really like my body since it is very skinny and I think I look like a 12 year old. Different subject!
While the doc was writing out my prescriptions I told him that I would stop taking my pills and move to a lonely island some day where they don't have any doctors and use herbs to treat any kind of disease. He did not think this was such a brillant idea. Then we said goodbye and he said " Until next year". I told him I was not so sure.
Afterwards I met with my best friend and told her about the way I had felt about her lack of support with regard to the hendrik issues. She promised to do better in the future and it felt good to finally talk about it to her. After this I talked to quite a few other people and they always were surprised that I had missed their support and usually said they had just wanted to keep out. Whatever!
Ok, so my friend decided to donate blood. Thus, we went back to the hospital and afterwards we had dinner at our favorite restaurant. A great end to a s..ty day.

Let's get personal

I've thought a lot about whether to share this or not since this is rather private. The last year was tough.If I had known what was coming last August, I probably certainly would have fled the country, running for my life. As you might know both Hendrik and I were not happy with our relationship last August. In November 2010 we had moved into an appartment together and daily life and all the responsibilities you have when you have your own flat became too much for our relationship. We had to learn to make time for each other again.
However, while I tried to be critical with myself and search for solutions, hendrik started an affair that lasted almost six months ( I knew most of the time). Yet, he was not content with himself. He always loved me more than that other girl, but he also wanted to have fun. We have been together for like forever and it got boring. Plus he wanted to go to parties, drink and be young. I don't really like parties (maybe I should have gone with him sometimes).
In February, he became aware of what he had done and wanted to kill himself. Since then he has been in treatment and really changed. I wrote about all this in May. Hendrik completely stopped going out or drink alcohol. Instead he started studying really hard and did extra courses in university. I'm really proud of him.I did not believe he could change on February 16. Now, he really wants to buy a house as soon as possible (like 2016) and start a job. To wrap this all up, we both agreed that an intensive therapy in a psychiatry wouldbe necessary. This is a huge step. Last Thursday I dropped him off. Again, I would have refused to do it if I was him. It involves a lot of courage to walk into such an instiution and talk about your secret thoughts with a complete stranger. I could not have done it.
Since then he has not been allowed to use the phone in order to completely concentrate on himself. I suffered a lot. I don't know about him obviously.  I miss him beyond words. It was also especially strange since the last weeks were so great. We had almost forgotten why we were there. Sometimes I thought it was not necessary anymore. Today I received a letter from him (he can only write letters, not receive any). He was so full of love, hope and determination. When I first met him I was impressed by his faith. In the last year he had completely given up on it. In his letter he said that he felt that God was talking to him again and that he prayed a lot. It made me cry so bad. In the past year I prayed for healing for him and that we might have another chance together. But most of all I prayed for him to rediscover God. This is a true miracle. Thank you so much God!!!!!
Yet, most of my friends and family could not understand why I stayed with H. I could have had another guy who might give me what I deserved. But I stayed. It is hard to watch as a parent or a friend. And some eventually understood and were able to see Hendrik's miraculous change. Others were mad with me for staying. I don't understand this. My best friend (!!!) was mad. It's hard. It's hard feeling dumb because I let him do this this to me and still stay and have the feeling that everbody believes you are crazy. I wish I had received support. Instead I became lonely and had to fight on my own. I wish they had told me that I was doing the right thing when I decided to follow the hard path and believe in the good. Some people did. Right now, I'm so full of anger towards these people and would love to tell them. I don't call them friends anymore because you are supposed to support your friends and not walk away during one of the hardest parts of their life. A true friend is hard to find. I do not understand, will never understand why they left me. Maybe I'll write a message. It would feel so good.

Birthday post

But I'm still not planning to grow up. Had to much fun on the seesaw with my daddy today :)