Everything done to prevent and cure cancer; yet Merel (31) only has a few months left

“Recently I walked into the class with one of my sons and another boy came to me: ‘Hi dear mom of Floris, you don’t just go away to heaven without giving me a big hug, do you? just know in advance though.’ That’s beautiful isn’t it?”

Merel is serious, she laughs a lot and after a while even asks: ‘am I not talking too much?’, while she has just explained that the doctors expect that she still has four or five months to live.

That message hits hard, you might think. And yes, the first day after the hospital visit last September 12 was horrible, she says. But the confusion soon gave way to calm: “The fear of getting cancer hung like a dark cloud over my head all my life, but it’s gone now. Now it just is and I want as long as possible is enjoying what I can do. That may sound simple and cliche.”

Wry words: because Merel’s life is by no means simple and cliché, if only that were the case, then “I would have stood next to you at Mysteryland next year in the festival season, so to speak”, she tells the reporter.

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But a festival in the summer is probably no longer an option for Merel. Her father was with her in hospital last month when she heard the dramatic news of the cancer’s return and already metastatic. Lymphs, bones, liver and even in her head.

According to Merel, he needed a little longer to process the first blow than she did. And it’s not that crazy: the situation will feel to him like a recurring chorus, but then of a very annoying song.

Merel’s mother and grandmother on the mother’s side also had breast cancer. Mother died almost 20 years ago when she was 37, Merel was 12. She also knows how to add a positive, or bittersweet twist to that: “Research that started around the time of my mother into the disease, has continued with me. That somehow felt special.”

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From the first cancer diagnosis, Merel has been very open about her illness and shared via her Instagram account the.mom.with.cancer in addition to cozy family photos, cheerful selfies, there are also quite a few vulnerable photos of themselves, from just about every phase of the treatment: bald, in his own words: ‘with an exploded chemo section’ or with a sunken face.

It gets a lot of sympathetic responses. And that Merel’s story touches many people is also apparent from the fundraising campaign that her niece set up last month after the bad news for Merel, her husband Bob and their two sons Floris and Maarten, aged 5 and 4. More than 2,000 people have already donated almost half a ton. “Can you believe it?” Merel wonders aloud.

“I’m so happy about that. Because Bob is now a lateral entrant in education after a well-paid job in project management.” And Merel does not say so, but that is not known as a fat pot, especially if he will soon have to support the two sons on his own. What she does say: “I’m proud of him, he’s so much fun with those kids.”

Bob’s job change, a choice of luck over money, is, like so many of the couple’s decisions, an indirect consequence of ‘the dark cloud over the head’, as Merel called it earlier. Both always kept in mind that something could go wrong at just about any moment. “We asked each other ages ago: what is really important in life?”

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Since she was a child, Merel knew that she too could carry a gene that her mother and grandmother carried – and that there would be a good chance that she would develop breast or ovarian cancer at some point. And that knowledge set a good pace behind many decisions early on. She bought a house with Bob in 2015, two children soon followed. And on August 3, 2019 there was a beautiful wedding in Zandvoort.

Then came a difficult moment: the one when Merel knew that she would be wise to have her breasts removed as a preventive measure. But she still didn’t want to. “It’s not a nice idea to mutilate yourself. In addition, my mother had her breasts removed and then against all expectations still got cancer. So I had my doubts. Six months later it was hit: I felt a lump.”

moon suit

What followed was two years of chemotherapy, even a special treatment that required her to be in total quarantine for five weeks, without any contact – yes, Bob was allowed to sit with her once a week in a kind of moon suit – and then the dreaded breast surgery. And she also had her ovaries removed right away, just to be safe. “The chances were too great that the disease would come back there.”

In vain, it turned out a month ago. And Merel herself remains sobriety itself. One day it sucks and one good cry with a friend with a similar diagnosis after that. “Somehow I can handle it well, you either have that or you don’t, I guess.”

“It’s also organized in a funny way, I don’t have to worry about which color sofa to buy, or whether an extension has to be a meter longer or shorter. I want to take the boys to school and go to bed at night Maybe one more time to Beekse Bergen with Bob. There’s so much happiness in that.”