#throwbackthursday – a year ago tomorrow I had finished 4 EC chemos and started chemo 1/12 Taxol ….yesterday I finished 7/8 Xeloda… this is the very final countdown 🎉

Due to my right hand being bandaged, there won’t be long posts for a while, but a few more stories on Instagram 😉

No sleep due to a wrongly bandaged hand on one side and a kid on the other, but a quick stop at the hospital and a lunchdate with Hannah works magic for handicapped me, who takes ages for everything now…. take care, peeps!

Next Thursday I get a smaller bandage and early January they will remove the metal … thank goodness I have household aids 😉

Operation ticked off!

Today I am at St. Vincent’s Hospital for what I thought was just a little operation on my finger… Little did I know that I had to get completely changed, even get a room and wake up with a massive bandage around my arm. The poor male nurse, who had to help me get dressed, is a bit helpless with closing bras, but hey….

I am home at lunchtime and arrange my follow-up appointment. I have to see an orthopedic doctor next week to get the bandage removed and get a little smaller support instead for another seven weeks, then they remove the metal…. whooohooo!

Chemo cycle 7/8 is over tomorrow – yet another milestone and hopefully I can go straight to rehab, when the metal is out!

Flashbacks…. but good ones! I am in St. Vinzenz Hospital for the preparations for my operation tomorrow and the ambulant treatment center is in fact the former maternity ward, which closed down last year!

This is where I had Leo and Mia, the bench I am sitting on, I was last sitting with contractions before having Leo – when nobody thought I had any and I had the regular pre anaestetic talks for a c-section a few day later …. and that evening I had my first baby!

I bump into nurse Esmeralda… she is still here…. and I am full of nostalgia, when I realize that it is actually the palliative ward though which I am strolling casually. I choke and there it is again – my cancer world…. I think about bone metas and quickly push that thought away! It is just a torn tendon and a shattered bone…. that’s it!

Four hours later I leave the hospital with the information that they will put screws in my finger…. Oups…. that is something I did not expect and yes, the need to be removed in December… I guess I underestimated the whole thing, but hey, at least it did not spoil my cruise!

The treatment treadmill has me back though…. I need to schedule physio therapy and lymph drainage, need to see the alternative practitioner, go to therapy, my onchologist and the gynecologist …. and the dentist, while there is a pile of paperwork waiting…. that will do 😉

Highlight of my day – the lantern procession in Kindergarten for St. Martin’s day… with horse, music and excited kids, who cannot wait to show me the lanterns they made (yes, I have seen them already, but who cares)…. I want the smell of fire, Glühwein and horses, the bras music that somehow always brings tears to my eyes, kids with cold noses and all smiles, while the lanterns swing in the wind. We used to have real candles, when I was a child with at least a couple of lanterns on fire and crying kids … we still have torches though for the smell and therefore there are no sentimental feelings having electric lights, but rather a relief that I don’t have to deal with fire dramas today…. I certainly hope so…. and I realize that I still need to get winter boots for the kids 🤦‍♀️

Next highlight?!? I loooove Christmas and the next weeks will be decoration blasts, cookie baking orgies, singing, drinking, making calendars…. I love it! End of the month the Christmas markets open …. whooohooo and since I spent last year in hospital, I will live it up this year and then I can recover in rehab with Paula… oh, wait…. not really 😂

I am on the bus from Southampton to Heathrow, it is a grey rainy day and the county is imbedded in fog. I see the Victorian brick buildings framed in the autumn foliage pass by and my head and heart are overflowing with happy memories from my trip down memory lane.

Tracy, Ruud and Peter – Ex QE2 and now head office – come to see us during breakfast…. I am overwhelmed… the time is too short. As we say our good byes in the midship lobby, it seems like we just arrived and at the same time it could have easily been 10 days…. thank goodness for social medial that we are all in touch and the next reunion is on the horizon!

Yvonne and Phil – also Ex QE2 – pick us up from the ship for a coffee, more catching up…. I am tired! And I drift off as the bus hits the M3…. bye bye Southampton I need to come back to properly catch up with everyone here ❤️ and I need to do that transatlantic I wanted to do for years!

We stop in Winchester and the Irish guy Fergus pops-up on my mind, who boarded this bus in autumn of 1999, as I was going from the ship to Ealing to pick up my last stuff, pack my 2CV and drive it back to Germany to joint the QE2 for another contract, as my summer job onboard had finished and they wanted me to return as a permanent crew member… he also lived in Ealing, we chatted the entire way on the bus, basically spend the weekend together and he helped me pack the car…. I wish I had met him earlier, when still living in Ealing…. we promised to stay in touch, but email just started and being onboard for years, we just lost touch…. I wonder what he is doing now!

Tomorrow I am back in Cancerville, getting prepared for my operation on Tuesday, but for now, I am strolling along memory lane for just a little bit longer ❤️

In Bruges…. is a great movie, but means so much more to me.

Matthieu passed away two years ago…. metastatic cancer….. and I never managed to visit him in Bruges… why not?! I don’t know. Setting priorities wrongly, I guess, never having enough time, constantly running behind schedule?

For five years, I knew he would probably die, but he did not and I maybe did not want to realize that this could actually happen. He came to see me regularly in Cologne, I visited him in Brussels, we met in Italy to spend wonderful days in the countryside. I loved that guy and from one day to the other he was gone…. and I could not go to the funeral.

But today I meet his brother Vincent and he takes Muriel and myself to his grave… I could just constantly cry, but try my best to pull myself together. I miss him, his humor and teasing… I feel close to him being with his brother though and meet Cecile and her husband – family friends, who Matthieu lived with most of the time before he passed away. There is Matthieu’s baseball cap in the hallway on the little side table and I get all choked up…

I am exhausted when we return onboard… it is so emotional, but I feel good and a bit closer to him, but my heart hurts….

We will enjoy our last night onboard now – off we go to afternoon tea, enjoy each other’s company and live the moment!

I am so happy to be part of this Cunard family…. these friendships and memories are just so amazing and we all float on little clouds through the day… but I take it easy, enjoy the time I sit on deck and ready – ok, I really wanted to look out on the sea, while doing it instead of overlooking the docks of Zeebrugge, but I still enjoy it!

Maureen, who was Social Hostess onboard QE2 with us, gives a lecture on her life onboard Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. She had her 80th birthday, but did not change a bit – I love her elegant way paired with her sarcasm and humour! Thanks for tanking is on this nostalgic journey of telexes, switchboards, steamertrunks, afternoon teas in Art Deco and G&T cabin parties disguised as afternoon tea, Lady Ryan – you are a legend!

The life at sea bonds you forever…. you work together, live together, party and cry together and you are friends for life ❤️

I just say „Feel it on the first“, check your boobs and look after yourself ….and now, I am off cruising to Belgium…. whooohooo – so exciting to be back onboard Queen Mary 2 and see all the crew I used to work with on the different ships ❤️

London, my love, thanks for bringing back all these wonderful memories …. the smell of the tube, the poppy vendors, brick buildings, cider, pub food, the busy and the calm, catching up with Muriel and seeing Rob after probably more than 15 years! I go with the flow, decide to skip the museum, as the weather is gorgeous…. I go the first time on top of St. Paul’s cathedral – as a student the entrance was too expensive – I was always broke as a student – but now it’s free with the handicapped ID…. I know, but there need to be advantages, right?!?

London makes me feel at home… the accent, the vibes, the diversity – but so also had lonely and hard times here! It is the spectrum of emotions, but we are off to Southampton soon – ready to take a another turn on my trip down memory lane! I love it!

It was Secondary Breastcancer (SBC) Day this month and there is the need for a post on this subject, as there seems to be confusion and misconception …. what is that? It simply means that the cancer spread to other parts of the body and is also known as metastatic breast cancer (MBC)…. in other words, it is a stage IV breast cancer and something you just don’t want to hear! A recurrence is if you get another tumor in the same spot, not a metastasis….

Getting a diagnosis like this, means it can be treated, but it cannot be cured and these patients look at a life long treatment in order to keep the growth of the tumor down or even make it disappear. This does not mean the end though – some people live with it for a many years and there is a lot of hope. There were a few new diagnosis of metastasis amongst us and it scares all of us, but we need to raise awareness and these ladies I know, are incredibly inspiring and I don’t know how I would cope with a diagnosis like this, but it can happen to all of us… it is lurking around the corner and scares the hell out of me!

There are a lot of women living with it for years…. I apparently inspired my friend Nick to shoot a portrait series of breast cancer patients and the organisation he worked with to realize this project is called Sweet Louise based in New Zealand supporting secondary breast cancer patients. Research is advancing more and more to hopefully find a cure one day!

Check out the film on my IGTV channel on SBC by Tickingoffbreastcancer or on their website to see these incredible women – it is only over when it’s over and there is always hope ❤️