On March 30 2010 my friends Katta, Maria, Eva and I met at a pub in Umeå. That very same day I had a call from my oncologist telling me the dark area fully invading my right hip caput in fact wasn't a metastasis from the breast cancer I had been treated for the year before. I didn’t have a spread cancer! The joy that day! And I got to celebrate with my girl friends! I consider March 30 to be my second birthday.
On March 30 2020 my friend Katta died, from a spread cancer.
Katta and I handled cancer completely differently. When I was declared cancer free I told my oncologist that should it come back I wanted her to give me the full picture. All the facts. To not ever hide anything from me. To put it all on the table. Especially if there would not be any hope. I want to know. Because I need to be prepared. That counts for most things in my life. If I’m only prepared I can deal pretty much everything.
For Katta the most important thing was to keep the hope. “I can take a lot as long as we are working towards a happy ending. And I never want the hope to be taken away from me”, she told the doctors.
I don’t think I was the best person for Katta during her seven years with cancer. It took me way too long to understand our different ways in this. I would ask her for the latest labs, the results of the MIR’s and the CAT scans, and what did the doctor say? I am afraid I put pressure on her. I asked her for what I had wanted to know in a similar situation. And for that I am very sorry. I did better the last few years, still, I am very very sorry.
Late Sunday evening I wrote her a text. I had been told it wasn’t long now. I knew she wouldn't read it but I really wanted to talk to her one last time. Yet, pushing the send arrow that momentI felt bad. Perhaps she still had hope and I didn’t?
Katta lived fully all through her many years being sick. She enjoyed arena concerts, she travelled, she did the most amazing and impossible things. She had more friends, and close friends, than anyone I know. And they were all by her side until the end. I can’t think of anyone who would have a single negative thing to say about Katta. She was the most likeable person you would ever meat.
I could have softened the title of this post. Katta has passed away. Her final rest. Something like that. Bullshit, was Katta’s opinion about those kind of euphemism. Tell it like it is! She was a very straight forward person.
She also didn’t like me telling long stories. Especially not interrupting with one of my stories, which of course, is a very rude thing to do. So Katta, I hope you don’t feel I have interrupted anything. And I am going to end here.
Okay, only one thing (I can feel her firm eyes on me now). I have been cancer free for 10 years now. I’ve had quite a few scares, but this far I have been spared. As happy and grateful as I am for me, as sad and sorry I am for Katta. I had wished her so many more years in this world with all her friends. She is much missed.
