A Motley Crew
We are just that. A group of people who would never be friends in any other capacity. Except that we all have cancer. Terminal cancer. I had never been interested in joining a support group in my previous two bouts with cancer.
1) I've never been a joiner.
2) I didn't really want to sit around and talk about cancer.
3) I didn't want to watch other people talk about their cancer.
This time, it has been different. The other times, I felt as if I could come out of the other side of it. If I just hung in there, if I just persevered...I could have one of those ribbons and be a cancer survivor instead of a fighter.
This time, the whole flavor of my office visits, treatment....everything, was different. I did the research. I was medically educated enough to know that I was not going to beat this. Or if I did, it would be an anomaly. There are always those who beat the curve. Go online and there are miracles. The man who survived stage 4 brain cancer. How he started hot yoga and began to drink special protein shakes and the next time he went to the doctor....the tumor was GONE. Whenever I read these, I always want to start singing that song from The Music Man about trouble in River City.
When I was diagnosed, I read everything that I could get my hands on regarding metastatic breast cancer. I read blogs. What I found was that, for the most part, people lived for about two years before they succumbed. Some beat the odds and lived for seven or eight years. A couple even went into the high teens. But, the ones who did that tended to be young and in sublime health when the cancer occurred. I knew that my health was not good. It was not even okay. I hadn't even been in remission from leukemia for a year when cancer returned. My white blood cells had only returned to normal for less than 2 months.
It was a peculiar feeling. I have never felt more lonely in my life. After the first few weeks of reeling, I began to find my footing. I stopped looking at photos and weeping. I began to find my way.
T was my main support, but she is not capable of looking at this logically. She loves me too much. She is in fight stance at all times and regards any foray into facing facts as weak. I honestly believe that she thinks that we still can beat this. Correction. She thinks that I can still beat this. She will let me talk about funerals and wills, etc. but those are something that she sees happening in a very long time. She often reminds me that we could both die of something else before I die of cancer.
I needed to find others to talk to about this. About what was happening to me, physically and mentally. So, I dug out the brochure that my oncologist had given to me about support groups. Called. Went to my first meeting...feet dragging...telling myself that I could leave at any time.
I didn't leave. Instead, I found a group of the funniest, bravest, most interesting people that I have ever met. And, in truth, we would never fit anyplace else together. We are just too different. In many ways, our only thing in common is cancer. Terminal cancer. We don't talk about anything except cancer and ways to deal with it. No politics. No religion.
And there is plenty to say. We discuss coping methods. How to handle people who just don't get it....which frankly are most other people. How to handle the types.
1) The ones who insist that if you pray hard enough, you will be cured.
2) The ones who pretend that you don't have cancer.
3) The ones who want to tell you stories about people in their families who have had cancer and beat it.
4) The ones who are fakers. They say that they will do anything for you and then disappear.
5) The ones who insist on having a pity party every time that they look at you...or worse, the ones who can't stop crying around you.
6) The ones who go on and on about how brave you are.
And most importantly....how NOT to get angry at the fact that you know that each and every one of them, no matter how loving, are all thinking the same thing when they leave you:
Thank GOD it isn't me.
I don't love everyone in my group, but I do respect them. And I learn from them every time. There is one man in my group who has taught me the most. He is a single man. A professor. He will soon be a retired professor because he simply cannot find the energy to keep up his job and deal with cancer. He was trying to wait until he was 65 to get medicare, but now will just deal with cobra.
And seriously....this is AMERICA...we are supposed to be this incredible country, but our health care system just stinks to high heaven. I don't care what your politics are....ALL Americans should be taken care of. We shouldn't have to be tied to our jobs simply to retain health insurance. If you have never dealt with a serious illness, you won't get this. But, trust me.....one day, you will.
But, back to our single professor with cancer. He lives alone. He is not the gregarious type and doesn't really have any close friends. He never had a big family. It was always just he and his mother and she died years ago. He is a solitary person and enjoys being a solitary person. But, cancer takes most cushions away from you and it has also taken this one from him. He now has to rely on others to drive him to chemo when he feels too ill to drive, which is becoming more and more. Or...as he put it: "At first I thought I could do this, you know? I thought I could just die of cancer alone. Now, I know that I cannot. I can't drive when I keep fainting. I can't afford to constantly take ubers. Our city is not very bus friendly, either. I have to have help. This is the part where I could use a big family or a group like Monica, Joey, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler, and Rachel to help."
We, as a group, step in. I'm glad that I found this group. It is probably the one place where I have cried so hard that my ribs ached for hours afterwards. Because, like most of us cancerites, I rarely cry in front of others. I have cried with T, but that is probably the exception and even with her, I feel as if I must be careful. I never want to frighten her. I spend the better part of my days pretending to be a normal person when nothing about me feels normal. Every holiday may be my last one. Beautiful sunsets floor me.
I don't talk to T about waking up at 2:30 in the morning and feeling such sadness overtake me that I don't think I can bear it. Because I know her. If she thought that was happening, she would start making herself wake up periodically in the middle of the night to check on me, make sure that I was sleeping.
But, in my group...we ALL talk about those moments. One of us said, "I was alone in my bakery at 4 a.m. I was mixing up the cinnamon rolls for the day and suddenly, I just couldn't stand it. I kept thinking how one day very soon I won't be able to do this anymore. I will be gone. And the world will just keep on spinning. Someone else will make the rolls."
There are so many things that no else can understand except them. Those various people, all shapes and sizes, all ages, all temperaments, all of us unique but the same. And we all get it.
I never used to be a support group person, but now..
Count me in.
1) I've never been a joiner.
2) I didn't really want to sit around and talk about cancer.
3) I didn't want to watch other people talk about their cancer.
This time, it has been different. The other times, I felt as if I could come out of the other side of it. If I just hung in there, if I just persevered...I could have one of those ribbons and be a cancer survivor instead of a fighter.
This time, the whole flavor of my office visits, treatment....everything, was different. I did the research. I was medically educated enough to know that I was not going to beat this. Or if I did, it would be an anomaly. There are always those who beat the curve. Go online and there are miracles. The man who survived stage 4 brain cancer. How he started hot yoga and began to drink special protein shakes and the next time he went to the doctor....the tumor was GONE. Whenever I read these, I always want to start singing that song from The Music Man about trouble in River City.
When I was diagnosed, I read everything that I could get my hands on regarding metastatic breast cancer. I read blogs. What I found was that, for the most part, people lived for about two years before they succumbed. Some beat the odds and lived for seven or eight years. A couple even went into the high teens. But, the ones who did that tended to be young and in sublime health when the cancer occurred. I knew that my health was not good. It was not even okay. I hadn't even been in remission from leukemia for a year when cancer returned. My white blood cells had only returned to normal for less than 2 months.
It was a peculiar feeling. I have never felt more lonely in my life. After the first few weeks of reeling, I began to find my footing. I stopped looking at photos and weeping. I began to find my way.
T was my main support, but she is not capable of looking at this logically. She loves me too much. She is in fight stance at all times and regards any foray into facing facts as weak. I honestly believe that she thinks that we still can beat this. Correction. She thinks that I can still beat this. She will let me talk about funerals and wills, etc. but those are something that she sees happening in a very long time. She often reminds me that we could both die of something else before I die of cancer.
I needed to find others to talk to about this. About what was happening to me, physically and mentally. So, I dug out the brochure that my oncologist had given to me about support groups. Called. Went to my first meeting...feet dragging...telling myself that I could leave at any time.
I didn't leave. Instead, I found a group of the funniest, bravest, most interesting people that I have ever met. And, in truth, we would never fit anyplace else together. We are just too different. In many ways, our only thing in common is cancer. Terminal cancer. We don't talk about anything except cancer and ways to deal with it. No politics. No religion.
And there is plenty to say. We discuss coping methods. How to handle people who just don't get it....which frankly are most other people. How to handle the types.
1) The ones who insist that if you pray hard enough, you will be cured.
2) The ones who pretend that you don't have cancer.
3) The ones who want to tell you stories about people in their families who have had cancer and beat it.
4) The ones who are fakers. They say that they will do anything for you and then disappear.
5) The ones who insist on having a pity party every time that they look at you...or worse, the ones who can't stop crying around you.
6) The ones who go on and on about how brave you are.
And most importantly....how NOT to get angry at the fact that you know that each and every one of them, no matter how loving, are all thinking the same thing when they leave you:
Thank GOD it isn't me.
I don't love everyone in my group, but I do respect them. And I learn from them every time. There is one man in my group who has taught me the most. He is a single man. A professor. He will soon be a retired professor because he simply cannot find the energy to keep up his job and deal with cancer. He was trying to wait until he was 65 to get medicare, but now will just deal with cobra.
And seriously....this is AMERICA...we are supposed to be this incredible country, but our health care system just stinks to high heaven. I don't care what your politics are....ALL Americans should be taken care of. We shouldn't have to be tied to our jobs simply to retain health insurance. If you have never dealt with a serious illness, you won't get this. But, trust me.....one day, you will.
But, back to our single professor with cancer. He lives alone. He is not the gregarious type and doesn't really have any close friends. He never had a big family. It was always just he and his mother and she died years ago. He is a solitary person and enjoys being a solitary person. But, cancer takes most cushions away from you and it has also taken this one from him. He now has to rely on others to drive him to chemo when he feels too ill to drive, which is becoming more and more. Or...as he put it: "At first I thought I could do this, you know? I thought I could just die of cancer alone. Now, I know that I cannot. I can't drive when I keep fainting. I can't afford to constantly take ubers. Our city is not very bus friendly, either. I have to have help. This is the part where I could use a big family or a group like Monica, Joey, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler, and Rachel to help."
We, as a group, step in. I'm glad that I found this group. It is probably the one place where I have cried so hard that my ribs ached for hours afterwards. Because, like most of us cancerites, I rarely cry in front of others. I have cried with T, but that is probably the exception and even with her, I feel as if I must be careful. I never want to frighten her. I spend the better part of my days pretending to be a normal person when nothing about me feels normal. Every holiday may be my last one. Beautiful sunsets floor me.
I don't talk to T about waking up at 2:30 in the morning and feeling such sadness overtake me that I don't think I can bear it. Because I know her. If she thought that was happening, she would start making herself wake up periodically in the middle of the night to check on me, make sure that I was sleeping.
But, in my group...we ALL talk about those moments. One of us said, "I was alone in my bakery at 4 a.m. I was mixing up the cinnamon rolls for the day and suddenly, I just couldn't stand it. I kept thinking how one day very soon I won't be able to do this anymore. I will be gone. And the world will just keep on spinning. Someone else will make the rolls."
There are so many things that no else can understand except them. Those various people, all shapes and sizes, all ages, all temperaments, all of us unique but the same. And we all get it.
I never used to be a support group person, but now..
Count me in.
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