Another long silence should finally be broken. Better sit down for this one, as it's not really the lightest of news. At the beginning of January I was taken to hospital again. My digestive system seemed to refuse working. My belly was swelling nastilly and painfully. The doctors came to the conclusion that I could now be declared 'terminal'. Nothing much could be done any more. No operations, no chemo - this to my great relief I must say! I could go home and spend my 'last weeks' in as much comfort as my home surroundings and some nurses could bring me. Since then, I am home again, with a nurse coming once a day in the morning, a bed that can be manipulated up and down and to all directions in between (great fun for the kids of course!). 

The good news is, that my bowels started working again after some days, and I am now keeping a precarious balance by eating the lightest possible food, in very small portioins, spread over the hours of the day. I'm losing weight all the same (I only weighed some 43 kilos yesterday...) 

So we've moved to a new phase. The strange thing is that I feel much happier now, because I now know what's going to happen in the not-too-far future. It means I can concentrate and focus on the things I want to be arranged and done before I go. Before this period, I felt as if I was in a kind of vacuum, in a 'waiting room', and nothing concrete came out of my hands. That was quite frustrating, but probably also due to the lack of energy caused by these ever-ongoing chemo treatments. So I'm very happy I'm rid of that, and my hair is finally allowed to grow again. (Stil a very short, but healthy looking fur now.) Frank and I have started to work out my funeral, and it feels like just another 'nice Chime project' (don't laugh, it's really like that!) We are brainstorming about nice live music we want to have, contacting people, getting extremely warm reactions...

One very nice and unexpected project that grew out of this was caused by a musician I once saw on the chanals in Amsterdam. He sails in a tiny boat with a hand-driven street organ, playing horn, trumpet or conch with his other hand, and manipulating his little boat in circles at the same time. He is extremely musical, and has a beautiful repertoire of mainly classical, but also some 'classic' old-timers, jazzy, world and self-made music. I was so moved by his performance that I always kept him in my heart. As we were thinking of live music for the funeral, he was one of the first that came to my mind. Frank contacted him, and he was deeply moved by the request. 'But', he wrote, 'what I'd love to do even more is to give her a serenade while she's stilll alive! YESS! I yelled when I heard the proposition. That's what we're goiing to do! We'll celebrate life with lots of friends, neighbours, children from Nuria's school and last but not least: my parents! I had thought of arranging a 'music boat serenade' for their birthdays last year but, as you may remember from an earlier story on my blog, they did not want to celebrate anything, in fear of stress and hassle. So this was THE oppotunity to let them witness the lovelyness of this musical performance without them being the focus of attention. So last week Saturday we had this wonderful occasion in the chanal in front of our house. It was magic, and this whole week we are still beaming from the aftermath. Every day, I'm receiving flowers, cards, and other expressions of thankfullness from the people that participated. Perfect BLISS. Enjoy the pictures:

Here he comes...

The night before coming to Leiden, Reinier prepared a version of the Chinese folk song Molihua (Jasmine Flower) for me. He also made a version on music box (attached to an old lute) which he presented to me via Elias and Nuria (picture on the left). 

I'd love to add some video, but will need some time to find out how to do that...


(if you would like to know more about the 'music boat' artist, he's called Reinier Sijpkens, and this is his website: www.musicboat.nl)