736th post

I'm blogging 4 years and 3 months now.
I've written 735 posts and used an average of 150 words. I used per post appr. 30 minutes. That makes 360 hours. That equals 10 working weeks of 36 hours.
Per year I could save 2.35 weeks of vacation if I didn't blog. But I do.

I could do the same with cycling. 4 years cycling with an average of 6,000 k a year equals 24,000k. With an average speed of 28k/hr it means I rode 857 hours in 4.25 years.
Per year I could save 5.6 working weeks if I didn't bicycle. But unfortunately I do.

This week I'll have a newspaper again. I didn't have one for some time now and it felt good. But lately I bought again a daily paper called NRCNext. It's a readable newspaper with all the news, though a little brief. When I received a letter of the publisher to have a free subscription I couldn't say no. It's without obligation so why not?
Exactly at the right moment a few weeks before the US presidential election.

My neighbor isn't doing well. I told you a long time ago about. The cancer worsened. The tumors spread to her liver. A few months ago she was told she would possibly not be alive at the end of the year.
Last week she was told that her life expectation is only 5 to 7 weeks. The day before yesterday she told me. She can't believe herself that it goes so quick. Last week she told me she could still wash herself but now she needs help. She isn't tired with life at all but she is tired of being in her house for so long now. She can't do so many things anymore as she is really weakened. She made a list of the things in her house she'll give away to some people. She checked her testimony, her will.
Now her friends will come at the nights, which she fears most, to sleep and watch over her. This week a hospital bed will be brought. They made a schedule who will sleep in her house. Those are the practical things.
Psychologically it's hard for her too. She has to let everything go. She gives her belongings away, mostly paintings, sculptures and things used in other cultures she collected on her journeys a long time ago.
So she follows almost the path of Taoism. I told her to let the things go. Yes, she said till now all my travels were going somewhere but now I'm going to somewhere which is unknown. I agreed, this will be your biggest journey so far.
Okay, we talked about daily life too. About dog's tax. And we laughed.

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).