Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Non, je ne regrette rien

A couple of days ago, a reporter contacted me. She wanted to hear all about my surgery in combination with Type 1 diabetes. She writes articles for a Dutch magazine and she wanted to cover my story. She was very friendly and sympathetic and we had a good conversation. It is going to be a positive story. A story of someone who refused to give up. Of someone who had to fight for her rights in order to get help.

Somewhere soon, a photographer is coming over to make a photo shoot to go with the article. She's coming all the way from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Pretty exciting huh!

The purpose of telling my story, is not to badmouth the people who were not willing to help me. It is meant for other people out there, who are going through the same ordeal. I want them to know there is a way out. They no longer need to feel the way I felt. They can breathe again and feel beautiful and healthy. There's no such thing as a database where doctors can look for the experience of other people who underwent the surgery. For patients, it's even harder to find peers to share their story with. I had the opportunity to meet other women in the same situation. I had a surgeon and a Dutch endocrinologist who were willing to sacrifice their leisure time to organize meetings for me. In the end, I ended up with a different surgeon and a different endocrinologist, because some doctor refused to give me permission to go ahead with the surgery. I'm very happy with this surgeon and endocrinologist as well. I still keep in touch with the other surgeon and endo, because I know they care.
I was very happy to talk to the patients and to see for myself how well they were doing. After all, their experience is important, because they live it day after day.

I'm looking forward to reading the article. I wonder how people will react to it. If people want to contact me, I'm more than willing to share my experience with them and give them a hearten stabbing. They can mail me, I'll take my time for them, as other people did for me..

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