LIFE IS HARD AND THEN YOU DIE:::::

The beginning,                 

The day Stephan took me to another hospital where our friend was a Doctor remains to this day a blur. I do not remember getting out of bed or getting dressed. I only remember being rushed in a car and Stephan on the phone talking to a Doctor saying ‘ I am bringing my wife in, please help she is very ill. I do not know what to do’

The drive is one hour ,Stephan made it in just over thirty minutes. I tried to walk into the hospital but was unable , someone brought me a wheelchair and I was wheeled straight in to see a Doctor.

He took one look at me and asked me to put out my tongue. I guess it was not a pretty sight, after a couple of days without fluid the tongue tends to swell.. Within moments I was stretched out on a bed and someone was trying to find a vein. I was of course dehydrated.

After a while, a lady Doctor came to ask me questions about my symptons. I had little strength to reply but she was insistent. I tried to explain but my tongue was too dry and too sore. In her opinion I had gastric and was treated for this in emergency. The sickness and the pain passed and I drifted off to sleep.

A couple of hours later a doctor entered my cubicle and introduced himself as Dr.Bartholome, who also asked me to explain my symptons. The lady doctor was also present. Dr.Bartholome asked her opinion and she said it was obvious I had gastric. No, no this is not gastric he said…and asked me more questions…he told me to relax and he would be back when he had my blood results.

As he turned to leave I said and I do not know why I said it ‘Doctor ,could it be cancer?’
He turned and said ‘No’


Again ,I remember very little of that day, Stephan was not allowed in to see me and he did not know what was happening.


In life there are two time lines. 1) When you are happy and enjoying yourself ,the hours fly by.
2) The other, the time when you are waiting for news…one hour can seem an eternity.


It was late afternoon when I was taken in my bed upto the ward of Dr.Bartholome. I was stabilized and felt much better . Doctors would come and go discussing my case at the foot of my bed…. days later one of the doctors came and asked me how I felt,. I said fine. I was not in pain and under the impression I would soon be allowed to go home.

Dr.Bartholome had other ideas, he said he wanted to do some tests..he did not like the idea of me going home, only to return later with the same problem. I agreed.

The tests that followed are too many to mention except to say, if there was an orifice it was tested. All tests came back negative.


Dr.Bartholome however, was far from happy. He ordered more tests , biopsies, but all, still negative.

I then had an endoscopy and something showed up, a piece was taken for biopsy ….but Dr.Bartholome had no need to wait for the results, it seems I had what he had suspected all along, Gastric lymphoma. Cancer.

Dr.Bartholome broke the news first to Stephan and asked if I was strong enough to take such news. Stephan told him that I was and together they came to my bedside to tell me I had cancer.

I will try to explain the moment, it was as though some one had turned the sound off to the world. My ears were making a buzzing noise and my mouth was dry. I looked from Stephan to the doctor and back to Stephan. All of this in ‘real’ time took a matter of seconds but for me the time had stopped. It was ironic. I ,a non smoker, hardly drank , vegetarian ,excercised on a regular basis …drank two litres of water a day . I had done everything, everything to keep myself healthy…surely there must be some mistake….and there was, but not in the way I or my doctors would ever imagine .I would become the first case they had ever treated.