A miracle in disguise

Let's take a trip back to 2017

It was an early crisp winter morning. I found myself in western Sweden. Not even the birds had found their way back from the land of the shadows. I got woken up by the classic ‘nobody can stand’ iPhone alarm, demanding me out of bed. My head was banging and the morning light piping through the curtain was shocking waves through my skull as had I by mistake touched an electrical fence. Truth is I had been dealing with migraines and a blurry vision for a handful of months, I blamed it on stress. The pain turned into a deep nausea, my yawn turned into vomiting. Embarrassment washed all over me, as my groggy eyes grasped the mess I had made in a room that wasn’t even mine! The thought of a cleaning lady having to deal with this mess made me so ashamed. ‘Poor woman’ I thought as I pulled myself out of bed and turned on the shower. As the hot water washed over me, I for a short while, turned into a nothingness. No above, no below, no in, no out, no vomit, no work, no obligations, no cleaning lady, no hotel lobby, no makeup chair in 30 minutes, no full day of flashing lights and fake laughs, no, no, no. I wrote a petty ‘I am so sorry’ note and left for work in a hurry.

The day went by in slow motion like I would’ve changed into a fucking snail. I couldn’t even keep water down. It wasn’t hard to tell that the producer was judging how many drinks I must have had the night prior, for me to show up in such selfish state. In many ways she was right to. Embarrassment felt old by now, and I just had to pull through because under NO circumstance could I let anybody down tending to my own truth and needs.

I finished off a little early that day. As fast as I waved goodbye I found myself in a taxi on my way to the airport. Fuck YES. I was hungry and about as far away from myself as I could possibly get. As I boarded the flight, I found my seat and greeted the man by my side with a smile. He was asian. A fact that might feel weird or even awkward for me to mention, but in moments like these it’s like faces never leave you, and small details will always be visually ingrained to your minds eye like that sticker you still haven’t removed from your laptop.

Next thing I woke up in the cockpit totally disorientated and every single muscle in my body was sore as if I had run a marathon (I have never run a marathon:) “Do you know where you are miss?” “Do you hear me?” I looked up at a man I had never seen before. “My name is Adam, I am a doctor, you had a seizure and was gone for about 4 min” “Do you suffer from epilepsy?” I was too exhausted to reply. The flight attendant helped me up from the floor and guided me to a seat up front. The whole flight looked at me in terror, I was still confused..“Here’s some juice for your blood sugar. We are preparing for landing, let me go get your bags for you”

My mother was crying. It was the morning after. We had just gotten the results from the MR scan. The doctor looked at me with serious, very empty eyes. He let us know that I had a growing tumor on the frontal right side of my brain, the size of an egg. He didn’t know more than action had to be made as soon as possible. I was given a shitload of medicine and got transferred to a hospital specialising in brain tumors. This was the first time in my life I was being called to meet the unknown. It felt forced. Little did I know..it was far from the last.

For the next 3 weeks before surgery, I did what I knew best. Started my mornings grinding up that OG kush, rolling up all green. I would have my first drink at around 1-2pm. Straight up brandy to ease my raising thoughts and anxiety. I was deeply depressed and had been for a long while. The thought of potentially being diagnosed with cancer. The uncertainty matched my already distorted nervous system. Putting my life into someone else’s hands? I was terrified. A terror I had never known before. Numbing was what I knew, and did it come in handy right about then? SURE thing.

Just two months prior I had moved into my own apartment. I was traveling the world as a model. My diet was poor. I was turned on by recklessness and lived a life like I had nothing to loose. The root of it all I see more clearly now through the lens of compassion - I was lacking self worth, self love and connection. I was running from so much pain. A pain so deep it couldn’t have started with me. A pain that have kept me holding my breath throughout most of my life.

On Sunday 06th of March 2017 I had my first surgery. The surgeon let us know that he took as much of the tumor tissue he could possibly get. That it luckily didn’t look cancerous. I’d come in for a scan one month after the surgery and eventually got diagnosed with Ganglioglioma - grade 1. One of the rarest, accounting for approximately 1-2% of all brain tumors. I’d come in every third months for scans and check ups, which then led to every sixth months.

I was so incredibly young and unaware of how deeply this was going to, and already affected all I knew. In many ways, if not all, I wasn’t ready for it to affect anything. I loved my life. I loved my cigarettes. I loved the escape. The action. The suppression. The toxicity. Late nights. Numb mornings. I was so addicted to the distortion I couldn’t imagine a life without.

What I did take away from this dive was to truly value each moment. To just DO IT, don’t think it, don’t just talk about it. To do what I truly wanted! Really dreamt of…to just dive in! It taught me to put myself first some more…To care for myself more than I worried for others. I showered myself in true weheartit manners ‘You only live once’ and booked a flight to Sydney - Australia. I packed just what I needed - including much of a reckless and promiscuous attitude still, and damn was I in for big adventures!!!

Photography by Rasmus Stabell