Marijke (or Mary in English) is my birth name 49 years ago.

It 's certainly not my intention to bore you with a long story about myself and my life but to give you a personal interpretation how LARS is welshed into my life and left an explosion behind....

I live in the area of Antwerp, Belgium. Not in the city but in a little village called Herentals. I am a proud mom of 5 children and wife of a hardworking man, An entrepreneur. Business in combination with a household... I had my hands full, little time left for myself and always trying to manage it all.... Like many people among us 24 hours in a day where rarely enough....but in a strange way I did it anyway. A fairly ordinary woman in a fairly ordinary life... With exception for my bowel, that one was special.  Intolerance to lactose, carbs, greasy food etc etc etc ....

July 2016 like many cancer patients my world was upside down by the News. Colo rectal cancer stage 3...luckily without spots...

Treatment plan was.... yep, indeed... radiation (that took me straight to menopause), surgery and chemotherapy. I had a temporary colostomy bag and within less then a month my world changed from "normal" to "living with cancer"...

I went true all the pain and tried to be strong, mentally as well as physical. Not easy at times and I cried more in 1 year then in most of my life. But.... I survived. I had one important wish ... to see all of my children as adults in their lives..... 

After a few months my colostomy bag was also in the past and I began, very carefully, building my new life, this time with the experience of Colo rectal cancer....

Along with that life LARS came as a silent enemy. No one told me even the possibility that LARS could become very important and it costed me more then a year to eventually find on the worldwide web my answer. It was during my daily long long and longer visits to the toilet that I met LARS....

And now?

I am (most times) in the acceptance that I have an extra life partner in my life called LARS. Trying to be positive I searched and kept on searching to find other people on the web. Very bizarre but I found..... No one.?! Other then a PDF with information i found few items on the subject. 

 

 

But.. at that same moment i found my motivation, my mission: Give LARS a face. Let go of the shame and join with other Lars - ians to make a chain worldwide. Not only to give the strong message that LARS exists but also to make friendship..  to beat the loneliness on a toilet...

 

 

So.... I hope to find lots of companions in my story and in the knowledge that together we can do more than alone! This website is a beginning, an idea that i had during one of my long visits to the toilet. I don't want to stay alone in this website... I don't want to stay alone with LARS... People joining together gives strength and magic to give a positive sign in the battle with LARS!