Today is not only the 90th birthday of the Chinese communist party, it's also my 49th birthday. And boy, do I have something to celebrate. Two days ago I was saved by surgeons who performed an extremely urgent operation: my intestines were on the brink of bursting. I'm extremely thankful that the operation was successful, and that I'm still alive!

The past few weeks have been difficult, even critical, and I know that there's another difficult period for me ahead, but at this moment I mainly feel great relief. The operation came in the middle of a new round of chemotherapy, not exactly ideal. It remains to be seen how I will get back on my feet. But it seems imperative now to live by the day, by the hour even, and to tread in small, careful steps! I do feel very sad about having to miss yet another Chime conference, organized by our good friend Szhr Ee and her colleagues in London...

Happy to eat my first (and only)
birthday biscuit after a week of
vomiting and constant nausea

The nurse came in this morning with clourful paper guirlandes and lanterns to cheer up my hospital room. At 11 o'clock, my parents came over. They just passed their 80th and 83rd birthday last month, but hadn't celebrated that in fear of too much stress and hassle. So now I finally had the opportunity to make up for that. I sang a song for them and together we celebrated the occasion that the three of us today reached the respectable age of 212!