Steffi Ewald Starts Chemo After Losing Her Son and Husband

Friends, we still feel very close to Steffi and her family. You probably know who we mean. Her husband and two of their three kids had cancer.

Then ten-year-old Jonas died shortly before New Year's Eve. After that, they said goodbye to Dad, Sebastian. And then Steffi herself was diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer. Now, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, she has started chemotherapy.

Dear Steffi, you got two pieces of good news today. Tell us about them, and about the feelings that came up.

Today I had my first checkup (an ultrasound) after the first two chemo cycles, and I was truly relieved to hear that the tumor has already shrunk by more than half.

The doctors were more than happy with that, and now the chemo can continue as planned (there's no other drug option for this type of tumor). After that comes the mastectomy, the removal of breast tissue.

On top of that, we got the relieving news that nothing unusual showed up on Neele's MRI. At the end of April she'll have the rest of her body scanned (from the knees down), because that part wasn't included in last week's MRI. There were "problems"… so keep your fingers crossed for us, but of course we're glad that everything from head to knee looks good for now.

You've started chemo. How are you doing, and how are you tolerating it?

So far I'm tolerating the chemo pretty well. For the first few days I feel queasy and drained, and my bones ache, but all in all it's been bearable so far, knock on wood. I really hope it stays that way…

My mother-in-law has moved in with us to help, so right now we're juggling the girls, the house, and everything else together, especially with the corona situation. We both belong to the high-risk group, so to speak, but we're sticking to "Stay at Home."

What was it like for you to lose your hair?

Yes, deep down you kind of hope you'll be one of the 0.01% whose hair doesn't fall out, and I did have to swallow hard when the first clumps actually came out… I had already cut my hair to less than half its length beforehand, so it might not feel so drastic…

But my scalp itched so much and there was hair everywhere, so shaving it all off in the end actually felt like a kind of liberation… Lenja wanted to cut her hair, too 😉 She gave herself little bangs 😉

Now people can see that I'm sick, since a bald head is somehow so tied to cancer in people's minds… The wig still bugs me, so for now I'm wearing a beanie, because it's really cold on your head without any hair.

How is the current coronavirus situation affecting you?

The corona situation is especially hard on Neele. She misses her daily routine, her friends, and above all our family. Now it hurts even more to realize that we'll never again sit together at the breakfast table, never again grill together in the backyard, never again cuddle up together in the evening…

Thanks to corona, a lot of families are getting this kind of "forced" luck right now: exquisite family time they've never had before… Dad and Jonas are missed by all of us, most of all right now…

I really hope that this corona emergency makes everyone appreciate their life a little more and live it more consciously. Fate can change everything in an instant, whether it's cancer, corona, or something else entirely…

I also hope that we girls will win back a new everyday life, little by little. First with corona in the picture, and then afterward, too…

Would you tell us how you said goodbye to your guys, and how you still include them in your daily life?

The funeral was very emotional. Basti's fellow firefighters and his colleagues from the Johanniter, a German emergency aid organization, carried him to his grave, and it feels good to know that the two of them will live on in so many memories.

Info: Here's the GoFundMe page for the family.