He was 21 years old and in unimaginable pain when a doctor dryly told him: It’s colon cancer. And left him alone in the hospital room with that information. At the moment, Bernd Zienke, now 28, could not have imagined what that would mean for him, how his life would change.
“I knew the term cancer, but I didn’t really know what to do with it because I had never dealt with it.” No wonder, at that age you have other things on your mind: education, love, friendship, your first apartment.
“I had just started with a new employer and was still in my probationary period,” the electrician recalls. He didn’t have time to be sick. And that’s why I didn’t take the symptoms too seriously. “I had slight pains in my stomach for a long period of time, sometimes while exercising, sometimes bending over, sometimes more and sometimes less. Then the basic pain got worse, but I still pushed it away. Until one night I couldn’t move because the pain radiated everywhere.”
He tried to reach his parents, somehow they finally made it to the emergency room. There, however, his complaints were dismissed and he should rest a bit. Good, thought the young man, then it won’t be so bad. And went back to work the next day. But around noon he could not move again because of the pain.
This time he went to his family doctor, who examined him, drew blood and said: “It doesn’t look good.” The inflammation values were way too high. Transfer to the hospital, further examinations immediately, shortly afterwards the diagnosis: cancer. Although he never smoked and was not overweight, there was no cancer in his family.
“The doctors told me: It’s just bad luck.” That night he lay in bed and felt left alone: ”Everyone on a ward like this has work to do, everyone knows every step. Only I didn’t know what would happen to me now.”
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After that, everything happened very quickly: the tumor was removed, and then the young Berliner received eight cycles of chemotherapy. “The chemo was severe, I squatted in front of the toilet for hours, couldn’t touch or eat anything cold, sometimes I couldn’t really feel my hands anymore,” he recalls.
Nevertheless, he went to work. “In retrospect, that probably wasn’t such a good idea.” The cancer came back. “Metastases in the liver were discovered in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.” They were removed, twice in combination with chemotherapy, and in the last relapse he received antibody therapy afterwards.
“At some point I didn’t tolerate them so well anymore,” says Bernd Zienke, so casually, as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Now I’m doing immunotherapy, which seems to be working well.” Every three weeks he now has to go to the Charité.
Otherwise, as he puts it, he leads a completely normal life. “I notice that my physical constitution isn’t that good anymore and that my memory doesn’t work that well anymore.” But he doesn’t let that bother him and just keeps going.
Where does he get the strength, the courage to do it? “Cancer is just a part of my life now. Always being scared and in a bad mood doesn’t get me any further.” In his free time, Bernd Zienke is involved with the “Young adults with cancer” foundation.
“Especially at the beginning, talking to other people my age would have helped me a lot,” he explains. “Now I want to help others so they don’t feel the same as me.”