This morning, I saw a large phalanx (I had to google that) of storks circling low over the clinic, almost as if to say – see you in spring – before heading south.
With just one item on my programme before lunch – an early Marnitz therapy session (a form of massage – SO good, for neck and shoulders but especially for the area around my scars – it does not necessarily feel that good while it is happening, but afterwards – bliss) – I went out for a bracing walk – nearly got blown off the dike several times – to see if I might catch a last glimpse of the storks, but they seem to have gone.
That is kind of sad, but the impressive sight of so many storks in the air at the same time is forever on my retina and I regret not having had my camera with me, locked and loaded, at the time.
The weather was pretty awful but what was just going to be a short walk ended up going to the beach a bit further than last Sunday. The route on Mapmywalk here.
Because of strong winds and drizzle, I had to leave my camera in the bag and only use my phone. It is therefore a bit difficult to see, but there were many more people on the water than on the beach.
Normally there is a direct train from Sankt Peter-Ording Bahnhof Süd, but these days, it is a bus service due to maintenance.
Apart from a bit of shopping (in DM – nothing interesting, but there are many really nice shops in Husum), I visited Galerie Tobien (pretending to be an art gallery, but it isn’t really, and Haus der Fotografie – a museum of contemporary photography located in the habour area. Very nice.
We are all afraid of cancer, but when the symptoms are staring us in the face, we don’t see them.
I have probably mentioned some of this before, but I still can’t believe how I could have been such an idiot.
Despite feeling more and more tired starting in late winter and early spring 2022 – a kind of fatigue which on hindsight I had never known before – combined with weightloss – I should have known something was wrong. My excuse now is that that is something that sneaks up on you, and you put it down to spring fatigue, or getting old, …..
But when in combination with the fatigue (and therefore going on shorter and shorter walks, giving Max to the dogwalker more and more frequently), it suddenly became a lot easier to lose weight (I had been trying, like most people 😊 half-heartedly for years) – the kilos seemed to be falling off me – what was my reaction? That taking those two factors into consideration – something must be wrong? Naah. I only focused on the weightloss and thought – NICE!
Until the invitation in June to the public mammography screening, which probably came just in the nick of time for me.
So please, people, pay attention to your wellbeing, THINK a little, and go to all the public screenings you are invited to.
Rule of thumb, I’m told, is that any change, however minor, that lasts more than two weeks – go to your GP and start the detective work. Better safe than sorry.
It is NOT always “too late anyway, once you have those symptoms”, even when it comes to cancer. I am living, walking proof of that. As are right now all my fellow “inmates” of all ages here in this clinic.
Many people had „warned“ me that there would be a lot of talk about cancer, and a lot of fellow patients who define themselves via their sickness. All things considered, I have not yet found that to be the case. In fact, people seem to strike a balance which is just right.
The one thing everybody here has in common is a recent cancer diagnosis (for some not so recent, and in the meantime, they have been through gruelling rounds of various treatments and therapies and lived with the uncertainty and/or the fear of recurrence, for a long time), and now we are all here for a break, to get away from it all, and to regain mobility and mental and physical strength to go back and get on with our lives.
Despite the fact that cancer affects about one in three or four of us all, so that it actually should not come as such a shock, this diagnosis is crushing, even life-changing, and only others with that experience can understand the enormity. If the subject comes up from time to time in a facility such as this one, in between talking about every other subject under the sun, I find that a normal step in the process of healing and moving on, and quite therapeutic.
Changing the subject, I caught this stork basking past my balcony in the late-afternoon sunlight:
After an hour of gymnastics and an hour with the instructor in the fitness room, it took some convincing to go for a walk in the afternoon. It was also very foggy, so I did not go far.
With the Corona restrictions, and a very small fitness room, the access to the use of a yoga mat and hand weights is pretty much non-existent, so I am unable to do the exercises I need to do every day (weight-bearing and stretching).
My room is nice and big and has plenty of floorspace, so I have now ordered a foldable yoga mat and some therabands on amazon, and then Gabi Fastner will have to come to the rescue yet again :-). I really don’t know what I would have done without that woman the last couple of years, except gone fat and stiff.
Last night in the zoom course, we were given the assignment to submit six photos that are questionable technically but perhaps still worth keeping for one reason or another. I thought then that – nah, I have too many other things in my head, I am not even going to think about that assignment and will probably not submit any photos this time around.
And then today I went out and took a sh..load of truly cr.. photos. It was such a bright day, and there is so much light here in any case, that I had trouble exposing properly, and – also because of the bright light, I could not really see what was going on on the camera screen, so the full extent of the disasters were only fully revealed to me when I got back to my room.
And to top it all, I ended with a double exposure which, although fun to play around with, I find quite tacky but it is easily done by mistake on my camera.
Still, I find it all quite amusing so I am adding some of them here.
I and one other newbie were met at the station in Heide(Holst.) and chauffeured to the clinic. Check-in and first introductions. Everybody is very friendly and all is running smoothly.
First thing Friday, blood etc tests, and consultation with a doctor to establish a plan of action.
Had my first neck- and shoulder massage by a super nice masseuse. Later, she will also have a go at the area around my scars, which feels very tight.
Today introduction to the back exercise sessions, and used the fitness room and the swimming pool (swimming felt a little weird, but good), before the zoom course mentioned earlier.
And then I expect yet another good night’s sleep – it is completely quiet and pitch dark here :-).
By the way: Let’s get the Corona rules out of the way: Everyone wears masks everywhere and at ALL times except in one’s own room, while eating, and while in the pool. Even in the clinic’s café we have to put the masks back on between sips of coffee, even if we sit meters away from the next person. Luckily, so far, we have a lovely Indian summer and are able to use the terrace outside the café. Visitors are not allowed anywhere in the clinic. We self-test every morning and keep a record, signed, and they trust us be truthful (considering the vulnerability of some people here I doubt anybody would be stupid enough to not be). Every Friday, we hand in the recorded results and pick up new tests for the week.
Mealtimes have been split into two shifts and organised so that only two people sit at each four-person table at the same time, and diagonally across from each other, and at the other shift, the next two people sit at the other seats. Sounds complicated, but it works really smoothly. It does mean that everyone has one designated seat throughout, which kind of limits the number of people one gets a chance to talk to, but on the other hand, people leave and new people arrive three times a week anyway, which is not conducive to making permanent friends. There are group activities, and in addition “extracurricular” activities that we can sign up for if our busy (I’m not kidding) schedules permit, such as qi gong, pilates, yoga, and walks.
A couple of photos from my walks in the area and in the garden surrounding the clinic.
Here some from a quick morning walk around the garden on a misty Saturday morning:
And here it becomes really obvious that Lightroom is not the best software for post-processing of Fujifilm photos. Grainy, wormy …. It is conventional wisdom but my brain is still a bit too fuzzy to even think about learning the software (Capture One) that everybody recommends.
