Grateful for Girlfriends

When I first got my BC diagnosis, I was in my old, empty house finishing the cleaning before we sold it. The cell phone rang, and I answered it expecting the best but hearing the worst. My cleaning lady/friend Peggy was there, along with Mark and our contractor Erick. I was in shock. Everything was going wrong. Our furniture had already taken off for Florida; settlement was in two days to sell the old house. What was I going to do? Where was I going to go for treatment? How would we get through this? Mark hugged me and wanted to hug much longer, but I broke it off. I couldn't stand still. I had to move. Peggy cried with me while she kept sweeping up the floor. I called my friend Arlene and cried some more. I paced like a caged tiger in the totally empty basement crying on the phone. I couldn't stand still. I ranted and raved with Arlene on the phone. I cried again with Peggy and Mark. Erick offered his sincerest prayers to me and later had his wife and daughter drive over to meet me and offer their prayers. It was a long, surreal day from that point on. We slept in a motel that night, and I cried there when I woke up the next morning.

That was July; this is October. Things have fallen into place, and the plan is in force. I was mad for a long time about the plan and in denial about how long it would take. I didn't want to stay here this long, so I guess that's why we drove out of Florida with only summer clothes in the suitcases. I didn't want to have to live away from my beautiful new house. I wanted the life I had planned, and this breast cancer was snatching it all away from me.

Time puts this in perspective at last, and yesterday I had a sort of revelation. Surgery is 5 weeks behind me now. I have traveled 25% down the dark tunnel of chemotherapy, completing 2 of the 8 cycles. I don't see the light at the end, but I'm far enough in not to turn around and run back out. I no longer fear the radiation that looms in the spring. My sister Cindy has been wonderful to us, opening her house and heart to let us share everything with her. Mark and I are comfortable in her house. My family, including my son, are around me regularly, giving me love and support. I like my doctors and the St. Agnes Cancer Center. Everyone there is amazing, and I feel blessed to have been steered in their direction.

Yet, there is one more thing that hit me yesterday that I have here in Baltimore that I would not have had in Florida, girlfriends. I have so many girlfriends! When we are in school, we make girlfriends. Some of them stick with us for life like Laverne and Denise J. We make some more in college, although I did not. Once we go to work, we have co-workers who may or may not become girlfriends. (Fortunately for me, many of my co-workers have also become my girlfriends.) Through our adult lives, we work, raise kids, keep a house, and are busy, busy, busy. We may or may not realize the value of our girlfriends; there may not even be enough time to think about it.

Yesterday, I had a fabulous day with one of my many girlfriends. It was a simple thing. She drove up here to visit me. We ate lunch out, then we went to a movie. It was just Annie and me. Girls day out. I sat next to Annie in the movie theater, and said, "In all the years we have known each other, I don't think we've ever gone to a movie together." True. I haven't gone to a movie with just a girlfriend in decades. It was a defining moment. It was then that I realized the value of girlfriends in this ordeal. Carol, a 7 year BC survivor, visited me after my surgery; Phyllis M stopped by right before chemo started; Kim and Chantel came by after my first chemo session; Debbie drove up after work last week for dinner; Jan came up on Monday for lunch; Annie came yesterday for lunch and a movie. Thursday I'll go to Annie's house to go out with her for lunch, and then Robin will join us for Mah Jongg. I have had other friends here as well, but when people stop by as a couple and visit Mark and I together, it is a different dynamic than just girls together. It's also very, very good, but it's different.

I am blessed with more girlfriends than I can even count. Many of them are still working or live out of state. Obviously, they are not going to be able to stop by for lunch on a weekday, but they still support me with emails, texts, phone calls, Facebook, and comments on this blog. I hope that all of you girls out there who do that, even the ones that I have not met in person, know that I treasure each of those contacts. You keep me focused and sane.

So today I am grateful for girlfriends. They are making this ordeal bearable. Thanks, girls!