Nicole van Leeuwen

Mother of young adult Jordi and sister of Patient Advocate Pascale van Leeuwen, I joined Inspire2Live in 2014 as well after the death of our father in June of that year. I spent 23 years in Spain where I worked most of the time in Tourism as a travel guide. Since 2018 I work as a flight attendant for a mayor Dutch Airline Company.

I came back to the Netherlands in November 2011 to be nearer to my family which turned out to be a good decision, among others because shortly after my return my father was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I am very thankful that I was given the possibility to be near him the last 2 years of his live. As the only possible treatment my father was offered was chemo, we had to do our own research for possible alternatives and when we found the right treatment –for which we had to travel to Germany- we were told that our health insurance company would not pay for the costs of that treatment. We found out quite soon that there were lots of patients with the same experience. Lots of them find themselves not only fighting their disease, but also fighting a lot of other barriers.

I’m proud to be with Inspire2Live as a patient advocate, this way contributing in trying to make cancer curable or at least a chronical disease in which patients can have a good quality of life. I'm also responsible for office management within our organisation.