Alternative heading: Expectations? Hopes? Resolutions?

I don’t normally manifest a lot of expectations or resolutions for the new year, although there is always an aura of new beginnings which I like.

This time, I hope I will be able to make no references whatsoever to the two Big Cs that have been dominant, the first one especially during the first half of the year, and the second one during the second half.

However, with the Chinese doing their best to pave the way for new variants to form and – not least – spread to the rest of the world, I am not optimistic when it comes to Big C Number One.

As for Big C Number Two, I have decided to heed the advice now increasingly available in order to try to avoid recurrence (which, by all accounts is very unlikely in my case, at least in the first twenty years :-)) but since the strategies are to do with lifestyle choices which make for better overall health and wellbeing in any case, I might as well follow them.

Obviously, with lifestyle choices to do with exercise and nutrition, you have to be extremely consistent, or there would be no point, so

a) A largely vegan diet (at almost ALL meals, although I will never become fanatic) which means spending more time preparing varied meals, making sure to get the necessary nutrients. I am currently leaning on “Dr Greger’s Daily Dozen” method. His speaking style is insufferable to listen to, but content-wise it aligns with everything else I currently read. In order to incorporate the principes in one’s daily life, there is also an app.

b) Staying very slim, perhaps a little slimmer than you would strictly speaking need for purely “aesthetic” reasons, which in my case means losing another two kilos and then keeping that weight, which again means intermittent fasting 16:8, which works well in summer but since it means being a little bit hungry all the time, as healthy as I now know that that is, does not work so well for me in winter, so shedding the remaining couple of kilos will probably have to wait till spring :-), and

c) Exercising daily, preferably one or two Gabi Fastner videos (previously referred to many times), and a walk of at least eight km, (longer in summer).

Until all that becomes so ingrained in my daily life, it, and the original reason for it, this will always be at the back of my head. Of course another constant reminder is the small matter of the “scooped-out” look and the two 25 cm long scars, as well as the almost constantly evident “iron bra syndrome”. But apart from that, I am promising myself to do what I can to make the fact that I had cancer fade a bit more into the background.

Oh, and then there are the shoulders.

I find that I have to pay attention to my posture more than ever before, and I am not entirely sure why, but it is apparently a common phenomenon after a double mastectomy where muscle tissue was also removed.

My shoulders now have a tendency to tilt forward, and it is quite hard to keep them pulled back in place, and combined with the “beyond-flat, scooped-out look”, it results in an unsightly kind of – actually I am not sure what to call that kind of posture – but it is something I have to work on constantly, and I wish I understood the mechanism better.

It is true that stretching the front of the chest and shoulders not only alleviates the “iron-bra-syndrome” but also, in combination with exercises that strengthen the upper back and improve mobility (which I think is by now about 95 percent) seems to improve my posture more, and for longer, than the exercises alone.

Towards the end of winter, I will do another round of physiotherapy, somewhere where I can also continue the Marnitz massages, and hopefully, they will be able to explain things to me and show me some new tricks to keep my shoulders in place.

And finally, still undecided about prostheses since it is near impossible to find a place in Berlin where they appear even remotely professional (there are two shops in relative vicinity: 1: Hempel Gesundheitspartner, where they had almost no choice in clothing, and of the two shop assistants present, one knew absolutely nothing, and the other ignored me and kept chatting on the phone (yes, chatting – it was definitely not a business conversation) for ever and ever and then I left. 2: In Petto by Hempel, in Steglitz so not exactly round the corner, where they seemed a bit more with it and I had an appointment for measurements, but in the end went there in vain because they forgot to inform me that on that particular day, they would be closed.

I have my sights on Hamburg now – it seems that there are quite a lot of places for breast prostheses there, and with more competition usually comes better service. I just would like something to balance out the concave look, I think.