Soltau (Lower Saxony) – Eyes like stars, just 32 years old, but closer to heaven than earth.
Vanessa is a former competitive swimmer and after surviving lymphatic cancer – when she was just 23 years old – she received another terrible diagnosis: leukemia and lung cancer (stage 3), metastases in the spine and two large tumors in the head. Her whole body is full Krebs. The life expectancy of the 32-year-old: six months to a year.
The cancer can kill her any day
Your life clock is ticking, any day it could be over. And Vanessa? She beams, laughs and enjoys every moment! “That’s my attitude. Being happy and carefree is the best thing there is!” she says during her visit to BILD in Soltau Lower Saxony. With her boyfriend Sebastian (50), police officer At the famous Hamburg Davidwache on the Reeperbahn, she lives there by a lake in a tiny house.
Two months ago, Vanessa shaved off her long, brown locks. Through the chemotherapy and radiation, much of her hair had already fallen out. Since then, Vanessa has been wearing hats, preferably ones with cuddly ears.
She quickly becomes exhausted and needs breaks. “I also have pauses and can no longer formulate everything the way I want. The brain tumor…” she says. And then in the next moment, with incredible strength of heart, make it clear: “Life is wonderful.”
Travel to Japan by motorhome
She is now planning her last time together with her boyfriend Travel: with the motorhome along the Silk Road, from Europe to Japan. She says: “I have such a good feeling about it, I don’t think I’ll beat cancer – but I’ll live with the disease much longer than the doctors think is possible.”
The couple is collecting donations for their “Expedition Hope”. „GoFundMe“needs around 100,000 euros for the trip.