Life doesn’t stop

Meet a vital mother-of-two who has been diagnosed with cancer three times in the last seven years. First in 2001 with a melanoma, then in 2004 with breast cancer and finally in 2007 with ‘secondaries’ in the lung and liver. Statistically-speaking Carolien Van Leusden should be dead – but the 46-year-old who has lived in Portugal for the last 24 years, is not only very much alive, she’s as happy as she’s ever been. Full of plans for the future, she’s written a book of her long, daunting journey with disease, in the hope that it may give strength to others who find themselves in a similar place and are assailed by feelings of bewilderment and despair.

“So many people feel their life is over when they get that diagnosis: ‘cancer’,” Carolien gestures the inverted commas, “but I’ve come to see it as a bonus. If my life was meant to stop, I would already be dead. I would have been hit by a bus, or had a heart attack. This extra time is to sort things out. To do things which need to be done. I’ve used the last year particularly (since I was diagnosed with ‘secondaries’) to clear-up all sorts of issues.”

We’re sitting on the terrace of the house in Lagos she shares with her two children and partner (“my rock”) Chris. It’s a house she wondered if she would ever see built – but, as she mentions frequently, “life doesn’t stop…”

“The day I received the news that the cancer was back, I also got the news that I’d sold the house I needed to sell in order to build this one. I realised then…life has to go on.

“There were crazy moments when I’d have to go out and choose sofas when I was in the middle of writing my will…”

But what made her decide to write a book?

“That was easy…so much was happening, I couldn’t remember it all – and I needed to, to try and make the right decisions. Another thing I realised was that I was losing so much energy on the phone. People would ring all the time to find out how I was – and I just couldn’t talk that much. I didn’t want to. So I decided to keep my friends updated with emails. And that’s when one of the many amazing, positive things about this whole experience, happened. People started mailing me back saying they “couldn’t wait” for the next update.”

Here, she flashes one of those still impish smiles that show the sense of humour that has buoyed her up through so many tough times – and the true grit that has been her saviour.

“On my last update, sent out last June, I wrote: ‘Anyone who’d like to find out more should look out for my book which will be on sale soon.’ Then I thought: ‘Oh my goodness, what have I done?!’

Now, she realises, that she’d done precisely what she was meant to do: follow her path.

«My Path» is currently being translated into Portuguese and English, while the original manuscript in Dutch is already doing the rounds of publishers in Holland.

It is a blow-by-blow account of one woman’s battle against the iniquities of life-threatening disease: emotional, inspirational, full of life, hope and invaluable self-help information.

“You can’t imagine how much I’ve read and researched through all these past years. I’ve been so, so fortunate with the treatment I’ve received here in Portugal from all the wonderful doctors and people on the Oncology day-care ward in Portimão. I’ve had extraordinary help from my father and his colleague.” (Her father is a retired gynaecologist in Holland whose current job is to evaluate new medicines coming onto the market for the Dutch Medical Board and the European Medicines Agency. Amongst those medicines are those used for secondary breast cancer…“Coincidence?” smiles Carolien. “No, coincidence does not exist!”) But alongside all the conventional treatments, she’s embraced many alternative therapies and radically changed her diet.

“In December 2007, what they call my tumour marker (cancer-relating blood result) was way beyond acceptable values. Four months later, it was back within the margins and until now it has stayed within these acceptable values. I feel for now I have been able to stop the growth, and am working to get the secondary spots smaller and smaller. I have my next check-up in March.

“I am not fooling myself, or the doctors, but I tell you something, I don’t let anything go anymore. If I think something needs to be done, I do it straight away! I am loving life and grateful for every single moment!”