I’m an oncology physiotherapist from the Netherlands. I’ve always known I wanted to work in healthcare, probably because both my parents did the same. I ended up in physical therapy, because I find it incredible what our bodies are capable of, both in terms of achievements in sports as in our recovery when things go wrong.

I was a general therapist for a few years before I decided what specialization I wanted to pursue. I lost my mom to cancer when I was fifteen, and i’ve felt powerless about that for a long time. Being able to help others who did survive, regain some, or idealy most of their fitness and strength gives me an incredible sense of me adding value to the world. So I picked oncology and I haven’t regretted it. The only struggle I face sometimes is the limitation on my time to help as many people as I can. Until I accidentally found a way to change that…

Back when I just started my Oncology Physiotherapy practice in The Netherlands, a family friend recovering from breast cancer called me asking for some guidance, she was doing ok, but struggling with fatigue. She was dreading to go into yet another care process with an oncology physical therapist like me and having to make appointments two or three times a week. She just wanted to know what she could do, so she could recover on her own terms in her own time. So i put some basic advice and some tips in writing and send it to her. She was very thankful and started to do better.

A couple of months later, I got a message from someone I didn’t know about the document I send her. It turns out she took my draft and gave it to a lot of fellow survivors she knew were struggling with the same thing. Unknowingly I put this info out there which people were actually using, so I decided to follow up with the people I could track down. They were all super grateful and I got a lot of feedback on things I could add to the guide, like it was something i was developing. I wasn’t, but it got me thinking that maybe it could be a way to help many more survivors who weren’t going to seek a therapist, but would greatly benefit from some guidance.

That’s how my online platform was born.

I decided to put the work in and create something that would allow me to help many more people then only those who came to my practice. If you take it seriously, stick to the advice I give and do all the assignments and exercises, however trivial they may seem, I’m confident you’ll be a lot less fatigued, regain a sense of control, find out where your new boundaries are and overall feel better because you can once again do the things you want to do.