I am extremely tired today. Exhausted from everything that happened up to now, the uncertainty, the hospitalizations, exams, tests, biopsies, and then yesterday the diagnosis and treatment plan. I find it hard to imagine that these difficult weeks since February 21 -the date they told us that they probably found brain cancer- were only part of the diagnosis. The perhaps harder and even longer part, the treatment and recovery, still has to begin.
Today I had an MRI (this will be the pre-treatment reference) and a talk with the hematologist. All this traveling to the VUmc in Amsterdam is exhausting in itself. Fortunately, the first part of the coming treatment will be done in the Jeroen Bosch Hospital in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where I live. They follow the same protocol, have experience with this treatment, and they should be able to start the treatment soon (as in next week). The autologous stem cell treatment part will take place in the VU in Amsterdam because this is only done in a select number of hospitals.