Welcome to GevechtOverLeven (Dutch for “fight for life”). Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Daniel. When I was 22 I was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. I spent the first half of 2013 fighting it, and I am still healthy almost five years later (at the time I’m translating this it has been 8 years). To keep everyone up to date during my illness I kept a blog of my experiences. This blog has long ago ceased to exist, but I found the old texts a while back. I put them back online in a new spot in the hope that I could help someone, make the unknown a little less unknown, or to show that even with all the misery it can end well.

You can find background information about my disease and treatment under Diagnosis and Treatment in the menu.

You can find the posts I wrote during my treatment under Updates.

BEWARE: If you or a loved one have (had) cancer this can be quite confrontational. I wrote these posts very in a very direct and open-hearted manner when I was ill, and I have put them back online just as I wrote them back then.

Start reading here

Recent Updates

Update 8

For seven months I have run, walked, taken steps back and crawled. I have seen time crumble away behind me on an empty plain as I stubbornly kept putting one foot in front of the other with my gaze fixed on infinity. Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes it rained, and sometimes an icy wind cut through my thin clothes. But when the ground behind you is devoured by time there is no choice but to keep moving.

Update 7

In comic books and super-hero films the story often starts with radiation. Bruce Banner sees a green flash, and before you know it he literally pops out of his skin and start throwing around cars like they’re hot-wheels rather than audis. Sadly (or luckily really) it’s all less exciting in real life. The radiation I’m getting is basically light, but more powerful. Light and gamma-radiation (and X-rays) are particles - photons - that move as a wave.

Update 6

There, wham, kablam, the worst is over. This weekend the last of the junk has been pumped into my veins, and the last pills were taken this morning. I’m not done yet - I do have 3 weeks of radiotherapy to go still - but it feels like it’s over. In three weeks time I’ll have an immune system. My heart will start behaving again. My hair will come back, and I’ll be able to sit in the sun for longer than ten minutes without burning up like a Bram Stoker phantasm.

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Recent Updates

Update 8

Update 7

Update 6

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Update 5

Update 4

Update 3

Update 2