When the year is about to end people start to look back at the highlights. They remember the big project they closed, the new job they found, got married, the next child that was born or the amazing trip that they took to a far-away country.

My year had many highlights, many moments of intense joy and happiness. More and more I learn to live by the moment and enjoy the wonderful 30 seconds (if not shorter) of a view, a look, a sentence or a feeling. Moments Pro Memoria (to remember).

Last Tuesday I had another meeting with my oncologist about the progress of my recovery. It is noticeable that the meetings start to change. The longer we work together, the more we get connected. Also, he seems to get more and more confused about my recovery, while some blood values technically still are showing major cancer activity . It is puzzling to him what’s going on. I can also tell by the subject of conversation. First the sweating and fever were priority, then getting rid of the muscle aches, now we’re just talking about how to reduce the need for blood transfusions and the possibility of anemia ( bloedarmoede). He finally agreed on subscribing EPO to increase my red blood-cell-count.

We also discussed the option of a bone marrow puncheon (beenmergpunctie) somewhere next year in order to find out the issue with the blood-anemia. He said: “Write it down, Pro Memoria”. For a second I was confused and I thought he said ‘Pro Mortem’ (before death). He had to laugh and said that after death it would not make sense anymore. I replied: “I don’t even think you can do it after my death”. He thought for a second and answered the way not many oncologists will do:

“You might even be right about that”.

There he was, for a split of a second, the oncologist professor who believed in, what he calls, a ‘miracle’.

This was a moment to remember, Pro Memoria.

Joost

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