Hello friends… it has been a while. In my last post I wrote about the speed bumps
of life and the fact that one had just jumped out in front of me while I wasn't paying attention. Maybe you are
wondering what that speed bump was and maybe you aren't. Those of you closest to me already know that
on September 11th Julie, my best friend and partner was diagnosed
with stage III breast cancer.
I had never had close dealings with cancer before therefore I didn't have a clue what to expect. As
some of you know once a diagnosis is made things move quickly. The last 4 months have been a whirlwind of
change. By September 24th,
our 1 year anniversary, she was having her first round of Chemo
treatments. They called one of the drugs
the “red devil.” It lived up to its name. She had four treatments, one every two weeks
and they knocked her off the radar for the duration. Since then she is on a different treatment
every week for 12 weeks which isn't nearly as bad. Yesterday we hit the mid-point; only 6 more
treatments and then surgery with possible radiation to follow.
The whirlwind seems to be slowing down and I actually had a
couple hours this morning with not much to do.
I am a doer. When I am not doing I
am thinking….and that isn't always a good thing.
I wrote in my last post that I knew blessings would come out
of this “speed bump” and they have. Julie and I had dated, seriously, for a
year when she was diagnosed but none of her family or friends knew for sure
that we were a couple. (Which is why you have not heard a peep about her before
now) We were always together but kept
the intimate part of our “friendship” away from them. Sure a lot of them suspected something was up
but we weren’t admitting anything.
Through this look into the face of death it was decided to stop
pretending. (I know, I know, I preach that pretending is not good for us!)
What we found was love and support. We can speculate that if the big C word had
not been involved the support would have been less, but I like to think that
being the great gals that we are lent to the acceptance. There was resistance and denial and a little
hostility at first from some family members and rightly so, especially since I moved
in right away after them finding out.
The move was not planned it was out of necessity. The financial burden of Dr. bills for her and
me trying to care for two houses and moving the kids back and forth was
weighing us down and putting unnecessary stress into an already stressful
situation.
All in all, I can say that life is good. We will beat the cancer and we don’t have to live in secret anymore. I guess it just goes to prove one more time that being who you really are, not trying to hide or having anything to prove, is the best way to be loved and accepted by the people who matter most in your life. Hopefully major issues don't have to happen to make this possible for you.
