being sick

Since I wrote last post I catched the summer flu. A lot of people are sick, catched the summerflu the doctor told me. Symptoms: fever, headache, a sore throat, painful muscles and so on.

So this week nothing happened. I was just hanging around in my bedroom. I slept for hours and the afternoon was over before I knew it. When the evening came with a low sun shining in my kitchen-window I was out of energy. I even didn't have
the energy to use the Internet since today.

I actually called the doctor. Today he told me it's a summer flu. On the Internet in read that rating non-fresh vegetables can cause it. I think that the food of last Saturday wasn't okay.

This afternoon I got a call from a man who said being the doctor dealing with absences through illnesses who wants to know what's wrong and how I feel, if I were consulting my private doctor and so on. I couldn't hear very clear because my ears were affected too. He asked me some questions and and me when I expect myself being ready for work...Next Monday I told him.
Then he said "It's good to hear that Jan. Hans here.." Then I knew it was a joke.

But a nasty one. No person should be a person he isn't. I couldn't see Hans, I couldn't hear as good as I should. This hurts the reliability of Hans and of anybody else who's on the telephone. I expected a telephone call from someone concerning my absence through illness.

Result

Well the doctors told my neighbor what's wrong. A 9 centimeter (5 inch ?) tumor in her oesophagus, with several smaller tumors lower in the oesophagus. It was shocking Friday, just like 2 weeks ago when she heard it was cancer. Now she was told the procedure and what the doctors can do. First she has to gain weight, at least 10 kilograms. (from only 45 kilo's!!). Then a solution may be an operation to take away the tumor. It's an operation which asks much of the body. How do I react on her bad news? She realizes how bad her position is but doesn't want to think about her near future. First things first. Wednesday she has talks with a doctor who'll be important for her, if the will live or die, her faith is in his hands she told. I learned from my mother that I should not talk always about her bad situation. So I tried to change the subject a little to the election of a major for our city.

Now I write this down I feel how absurd this is. If a situation is hopeless you often can better say nothing, because anything you say might be painful. In the beginning I was speechless, but in fact I had a lot of question. I tried to talk about daily life; the election of a new city-major. about her love for history, Rome and the ancient caves where she has had lesson about the ancient Roman history. She told me about skeletons found which fascinates her.

How morbid can ordinary life be. She might not life through another year and here he talk about dead people. I really hope the best for her and everybody around her but I fear the worst. I won't tell her what I think, I'll try to be optimistic and will talk about daily life. That's what I can do.

The morbidness is that she sleeps, or tries to sleep, just one floor under me and that I live my life .... (my neighbor on my level doesn't even know what's going on).