Paths appear and disappear

 

Paralyzed

She was fixed by a man.

Holding tight

 

Back stories

The Diagnosis

About four years ago, my wife complained of abdominal pain, and she had also lost a lot of weight. We blamed this on breastfeeding. Our son was ten months old at the time. We went to the doctor. At first, the doctor assumed that my wife was pregnant because her hormones in her blood indicated that she was. Then I asked him to palpate her abdomen once. He did so. He became quiet and serious and ordered further examinations. There were hard lumps where the liver and intestines are. My wife had to stay in the hospital. She seemed calm, but I felt that she was terribly afraid. I had to go home alone with our son. The reassuring mother's breast was then gone from one moment to the next and I tried to give him the closeness he needed.

In the evening, my wife called me. I don't remember if she was crying. I think not. She had also cried or complained little later. She told me that the doctors had found evidence of cancer. Days later it was certainty. My wife had terminal colon cancer in her early 30s that had already spread to large areas of the liver. The doctors more or less gave us a year. Almost exactly one year later she died. Her body had taken on a grotesque shape before that. One in which there was hardly any life left. The sight hurts.