Lucie Dulfer - Luijendijk (1940-2002)
		EMAIL aan Frank Viswanth (april 2002)

Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:19:51 +0200 To: cguidancecentre@rediffmail.com From: dulfer@xs4all.nl Subject: letter to Frank Dear Frank, Last week, while in hospital, I received a thick envelope with a number of pictures from you. In it I noticed to my great surprise that you have given my name to the Old Age Home. I feel very much honoured by this gesture, it is a great pity that I will not be able to go and visit you and greet the old people myself. It has been a long time since we had any communication at all. I started writing a card for you thanking you for the Christmas wishes in the beginning of January but that same card is still on my desk. I didn't manage to finish it. I simply didn't have the time or the energy to start on e-mails. These months starting in January in the year 2002 have brought a medical disaster to both of us and we have been busy trying to deal with this. I will try to tell you what happened, not too detailed. My husband Gerard proved to have Kahler's disease in a agressive variation. So by now he has received two chemo therapy courses. The chemo therapy has a remarkable good effect on his bone marrow and his blood, but the side effects both times were incredably heavy. The doctors will now continue with a less intensive chemotherapy. Anyhow, he is now back from hospital, rather weak, feeling like an old man, but we are all glad that he is still alive. And we hope that his condition will improve in the next days/weeks. This therapy will not cure but can only slow down the process. The same goes for what I am doing now. After an infection and later an operation on my bowels the doctors decided first that I should be operated again on the cancer which was found, but later, after a few weeks and more check-ups the whole team said that another operation would cause too much damage in comparison to the benefit it might give. So there I was with the idea that nothing could be done anymore. But apparently there is also chemo therapy for bowel cancers which can't be operated. I have now had the first course, which means one week in every four weeks, and this six times. But only one patient in three will get any benefit. So if it is decided after three months that there is no positive effect I will stop. Which means that the life span of both of us is very short, although we don't know how short. One year?, two years?, perhaps for Gerard a few years longer. Many friends write to us that they pray for a miracle but I have to admit that we ourselves don't believe in miracles. This is our given course, and we can try to do something about it through medecine, but I am convinced that God will not, cannot, interfere in individual live patterns. Although we don't believe that these illnesses are God's doings, we believe that He will take care of us in this situation and we have to live our shortened life in a meaningful way. And that is quite difficult, I have to admit. Our energy is limited, it is difficult for us to go places, for many things we have to ask others for help. Fortunately we have two neighbours who are prepared to help us in anyway, but still it is difficult to accept that one can't do everything or go everywhere as before. Our family is quite devastated about it as you can imagine, perhaps it is even more difficult for them than for us. I understand that you still have good relations with people in Germany, I hope you can keep these. I don't know exactly what Lin has been planning for Cards. It is not my business anymore, although I am always interested in any news. My very best wishes to you (and your parents). Lucy Dulfer  --------------------------------------------------- Lucie M. Dulfer-Luijendijk Sint Andriesstraat 18 3811 HT Amersfoort The Netherlands  Tel. + 31 33 479 99 50 E-mail: lucie.dulfer@xs4all.nl