Benedikt, Germany

Cancer turned my world upside down by the end of 2022. My life came to a halt, when i was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma Stage 3b. 

Ever since my life changed to a before and an after. Facing your own mortality and fighting against death at just 34 years of age is a horrendous feeling, that changes the way, you think about life in general. While everyone around me started families, built houses and enjoyed life, I desperately tried not to die. 

6 months of intense chemotherapy were sucking the life out of my body, but I'm proud to say,  my mind never surrendered. Physically you are not in control of your own fate anymore, but psychically you are.  It's the hardest part from the first diagnosis to therapy to the final scans not to break down mentally. Most of the chemo days i felt like being dead and sometimes those pills and infusions and their side effects made me wish being dead. My look scared my environment, my whole appearance confronted them with disease and death. Some couldn't handle it, they were too afraid to ask, how i am, too afraid to hear the truth and maybe too afraid to think about their own mortality. It was the toughest time of my life. 

But you can't quit, you can't stop, if you want to live and you need good people supporting you. People you can completely rely on, when you are about to break down:  Family, friends, nurses and doctors.  I'm lucky to say, i had those. 

I don't know, what the future brings, but right now i'm in month 18 of remission and right now i don't care about death, i care about life.