Why Route 72....? Route 72 is the corridor to the cancer clinic at the St Antoius hospital here in Utrecht,Netherlands. It's one of the places you first visit when the disease is suspected, where you find out your diagnosis and care plan. Route 72 is a busy corridor in the hospital but everything is on time, no waiting about but you feel like a number as you wait to be processed by the specialists and then leave with a handful of prescriptions, a tiny bit of hope and a look of disbelief.....Kees was diagnosed with stage 4 primary liver cancer .........is this really happening to us!
The doctor already knows your next visit will be less positive, they do the best they are medically trained to do, they cannot give in to compassion, it is their job to prescribe medication that is all, they are not counsillers yet we look desperately into their eyes because we think they can save our loved ones.
My challenge here is the language barrier I have lived here almost two years but my Dutch is very basic, most Dutch speak good English yet somehow strangely enough most of the medical professionals I encounter on Route 72 speak rather poor English. Which means my partner Kees has to translate everything. In turn it is frustrating when I cannot express my concerns directly to the Specialists, I am the carer and I want to leave no stone unturned. Maybe I can just persuede the doctor in my badly spoken Dutch to hand over the miracle cancer cure that's only for the sweet talking carers.
Last week Kees had Five sessions of radiation to shrink a tiny tumour on his spine. Since then he has rapidly deteriorated, he is in massive pain, he can hardly walk, he can not lie flat to sleep. Radiation is extremely painful and gives us little hope of improvement. It is suppose to offer quality to your remaining days.....well it wasn't a success!
