{"id":6268,"date":"2025-11-26T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T14:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/bibliotheek\/there-is-life-after-his-cancer\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:12:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:12:31","slug":"there-is-life-after-his-cancer","status":"publish","type":"library_pt","link":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/library\/kolommen\/there-is-life-after-his-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"There is life after his cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-post-date\"><time datetime=\"2025-11-26T15:49:00\">26 November 2025<\/time><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I enjoy writing about Milan and his life experiences. Of course, because he\u2019s my hero, but also because I\u2019m curious about the social and emotional effects of his terrible start in life. I follow his story with both admiration and fear.  <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s become a routine by now: before I write my blog post, I ask Milan what we\u2019re going to talk about. He lists a few things, and I turn them into a column. As we were doing this, I was startled by my own behavior: my questions to him are very negatively charged. I\u2019m looking for drama to fuel my story.   <\/p>\n<p>Milan noticed it, too. \u201cDad, things are going really well, aren\u2019t they? I was a pilot just last week!\u201d And indeed he was\u2014on Sky Kids Day. This event is organized for children ages 6\u201318 who have a serious or chronic illness or an intellectual or physical disability. Each child gets to fly in a glider with a pilot. For 15 minutes, they feel like royalty in the sky. On a day like this, you step into a world full of hearts of gold\u2014a warm, huggable core in an increasingly harsh society. Here, heroes are honored by heroes. Volunteers, sponsors, pilots\u2026 They all do this to see the smile on a child\u2019s face when they step out of the plane.          <\/p>\n<p>I thought about it. Milan is indeed doing very well. There is life after cancer. Of course, there are some tough days. But there are also days when he gets to fly a plane. Or experience a dream day organized by Make-A-Wish Netherlands, where he gets to ride in a fire truck, a limousine, and a police car. He\u2019s met other children with retinoblastoma at the activities organized by the OOG in OOG Association. And there are the days when the whole family goes to Opkikkerdag every year to be pampered.       <\/p>\n<p>This platform gives me the opportunity to thank all these organizations and the wonderful people behind them. They ease the suffering of so many families and touch the hearts of so many children. They offer people band-aids after they\u2019ve taken a hard fall on the sharp edges of life.  <\/p>\n<p>And most importantly to me: they make sure Milan says he\u2019s doing really well. Because, as my sweet little smart aleck also said, \u201cIf we get to have such fun days, then cancer isn\u2019t all bad, is it?\u201d <\/p>\n<p>And you know what? He&#8217;s absolutely right. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My son Milan Burger (10) was 2.5 months old when he was diagnosed with eye cancer. What followed were endless treatments, general anesthesia, bad news conversations, \u201cslightly better\u201d news conversations, and an eye removal. Milan retained 30% of his vision in his \u201cgood\u201d eye.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5088,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_daextauttol_enable_tooltips":""},"library_cat":[112,123],"class_list":["post-6268","library_pt","type-library_pt","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","library_cat-kolommen","library_cat-retinoblastoma"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt\/6268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/library_pt"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"library_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_cat?post=6268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}