The Saturday I stopped pretending I was fine

When I moved to Amsterdam from São Paulo, I had two suitcases and an onboarding packet from my new employer. Four months later, I had a diagnosis in a language I only half understood.

The Dutch healthcare system is kind — but kindness in a second language is a strange thing. Every appointment, I was translating in three directions at once: the oncologist’s careful explanations into Portuguese for my mother over WhatsApp, my own questions back into clinical Dutch, and my fear into something presentable for colleagues who asked how I was doing.

Someone at my hospital mentioned CSN. I almost did not go. I imagined a support group in the traditional sense — folding chairs, tissues, a lot of earnest nodding. What I found instead was a Saturday brunch in Oost, thirteen people from nine countries, and a woman from Colombia who had just finished the same treatment I was about to start. She did not tell me it would be okay. She told me what the third week felt like. That was better.

I did not need more information. I needed people who had already translated it.