Testimony

Maybe it's time to inform the world about my neighbor with a bad aggressive cancer.
I wrote you about her in my blog in September 2007.

Her situation worsened that should be clear. She was operated more than a year ago and she recovered slowly, first without a voice. Then it seemed doctors made an error during the operation which resulted in another way using her voice. When the days got warmer she went outside for a walk but it was to much, she fainted several again. She even got dizzy in her house. When Summer past she hardly went outside. A wheelchair was arranged to go for a walk with her. But when Autumn arrived and the weather worsened she stayed inside. Afraid to catch a cold. She became more and more tired because she was locked in in her own apartment. Days past and many visitors came. They had some smalltalk about the past and the things they had together. She wrote her testimony and made a list of things she would give away. Dead is near.
She got morphine and other painkillers. A wrong dose and she had a trip. A roller coaster ride in her bed. She was afraid that night. After that night her friends made a schedule to sleep in her house and watch over her.

Some weeks ago she phoned me and told in which condition she was. The doctors give me 5 till 7 weeks, she told, I might not be here anymore when Christmas arrives.
Her liver grows and doesn't work properly. Also it presses against her lungs so she gets short-winded.

She has a hospital bed in the middle of her living room, a lot of people who care for her and morphine to endure the pain. She said that it's the worst illness one can have. It damages the whole of her body. Luckily not her mind.

She has mentioned euthanasia as a possible way of dying. Her feeding machine prevents her from dying. She gets enough Joules to stay alive. Normally people with cancer get weak because they don't eat anymore and die. It's a simplification but in the end it's the truth.