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.

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.

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.

It would appear that I have neglected you, my loyal fans, a little bit over the past period I haven’t had any exciting thing happen like last time, so sadly (well, luckily) there isn’t that much to tell you about. Everything is just slowly meandering along, although the side-effects are adding up. The fatigue is more-or-less constant by now. The loads of exercise aren’t giving me energy like they were before, although I reckon it would’ve been much worse without.

I’m over the hump of round 4, and it’s high time for another update. I used up all the bad luck I had left over this round (well, I hope so). I think it’s safe to say by now that lady fortune is not my biggest fan. It started in the middle of the dip in my immune system. I had just stepped onto my longboard in good spirits to do some cardio in Zoetermeer.

It’s high time for another update. I’m not much of a writer when there are other things to do, but I can’t leave all my loyal fans at the edge of their seats. Since the last update I’ve had another two rounds, and it’s still not too bad. The second one did hit me a lot harder than the first though. The Saturday after I was sick like a dog for the entire day.