It is everyone’s worse nightmare, to wake up one day and be told that they long life you thought you had ahead is no longer going to happen. This exact scenario happened to 18 year old Julie, who one morning woke up with a bit of pain in her arm only to be told a few weeks later that she would not have long to live.
It could have happened to anyone who just woke up and had a twinge somewhere. We would all do the exact same thing Julie did, think it was nothing and go on with our day, possibly complaining about a bad position we had slept in. At most we would take a painkiller and go on with our day, because getting small aches and pains is a normal part of the human experience. The difference is, her pain did not get better, in fact, it only got worse, and when she went to a routine doctor’s appointment, she received news that marked a before and after: she had advanced bone cancer.
Julie’s journey with her arm pain and the resulting cancer diagnosis
Luckly she lived in Belgium, and the process was as swift as it could have been, what follows were a barrage of medical tests, referrals and biopsies, all to confirm that she had an aggressive tumor in the bone of her left arm and that the outcome was not likely to be a good one.
In an interview with Belgian media Julie relayed her experience with being suddenly sick (translated) “My arm swelled up, I couldn’t move it properly anymore. They sent me to an oncologist in Ghent. That’s where it all began.”
“All” could not even begin to cover the months of surgeries, chemotherapy, intense radiation, and finally, the amputation of her arm and the fitting of a prosthesis. “All” in vain. Despite medicine’s best efforts, the cancerous cells continued to spread and metastasized to her lungs. In March, her doctors gave her the worst news: conventional treatments were no longer effective, and her chances of recovery were virtually nonexistent.
This is when she decided to share her story, (translated) “Last month they told me I’m not going to get better. That I probably only have a few months left to live. […] I’m not going to sit in a corner crying”.
Despite the end being near, there is still a lot she wants to do (translated) “I want to live as much as I can, while I can, If I get two years, that’s already a gift. […] I want to create memories, not just goodbyes.”
Her plans are simple, but complex given her newly acquired medical condition, take one last trip to New York and catch a basketball game with her partner, go to the reunion concert of K3, her favorite childhood band, and attend Christmas with her family. But all these plans get dampened with a heavy dose of reality. At just 20 years old, she has already been asked to do her end of life planning and what she would like to happen on the morning she does not wake up.
But she thankfully remains in high spirits and wishes to share the lessons of this experience with the world (translated) “My message is simple: appreciate. Everything. Even the smallest things. Take nothing for granted […] As long as I have breath, I’m going to live with intensity. I focus on what matters: the people I love, the good moments, and I don’t need pity unless it’s sincere.”
The worst part has been losing people, but it has also made her realize who in her life is worth keeping around (translated) “Some ties were broken, and that’s okay. The ones that remained are worth gold.”