To just get a couple of messages from people that you love and people that love you, helps me to get this fight off the ground again. I've had so many messages here and by email and when I feel bad, I re-read them. Sometimes they only help me to remember that someone really does care, or at other times, they help me to get up off this fat ass and try harder.
To have people that you love dearly, is the most wonderful thing on earth. Some of these friendships are only a couple of weeks old and some are knocking twenty five years. One lady I met while at the Indian Embassy a few weeks ago - I simply asked her the way there, as I was coming from a different direction than I'd come from before and was a little.....lost. We talked for about half an hour and she has since never left it more than a few days before sending a text of comfort and sincerity.
I believe that with my faith in human nature at an all time low at the beginning of this journey and feeling very very alone - one of the lessons taught me is that I was wrong. There are some wonderful people out there. Unfortunately we are spread wide on the earth, but that doesn't really matter because you are still THERE.
UK, Ireland, France, Mauritius, India, USA, Northern Ireland, South Africa.
Thank you SO much for sharing this journey with me. You REALLY have NO idea what your love means to me...NO IDEA!
Real friends are worth more than any amount in the bank - and I would rather stay poor in that respect - because you have made me the richest person on earth.
I'm not as bad as yesterday - the pain seems easier, for the first time - but I did take the pain killer this morning so that I can function physically, a little better - of course the medication makes one's head feel out of it a bit and then very tired around lunch time - but I've also had to learn compromise. People that know me know how much I hate taking chemical medication - and now I will be full of it for a long time yet. Chemo frightens me to death, literally. Everyone tolerates it differently and of course I have no idea how I will fare. Whatever happens, I'll be living alone and hope to God I cope ok. Knowing most of the side effects helps, as even though they may be awful, if I know they are part and parcel, I will just have to tolerate them.
Apparently a huge dose is given initially so that they can see what effect it has - and then give yet more medication to combat ill-effects or lessen the strength a bit to make life a little easier.....so the first couple of times will be the hardest. Hair falls out about 10 days to two weeks after the first chemo. I'll have mine shaved off as soon as that starts to happen - I can't imagine my mental state if I can just see clumps falling and I believe it's better than seeing that, just to shave it off.....mouth ulcers, Hot Flushes (Oh no, not again!) skin yellowing, nausea, diarrhea, constipation,vomiting, bad pains in joints and body, burning sensations of the skin, rashes, nightmares, insomnia, impared eyesight, and a whole load of other stuff (ah, how nice) are some of the effects - and we are told that we have to think positive in this situation and that the bad stuff is killing the life-threatening stuff.....I wonder where one gets positivity at that time ? - I think it might just go out of the window :-)
Friends who don't run away from you when you have a massive life-changing illness like cancer, are the ones who keep you on track. Some people still have the subconcious notion that cancer is 'catching', and they don't know that their body language is betraying what they're saying with their lips... it's an in-built self preservation that we all have, except sometimes it hurts badly. Like a lot of illnesses, you can't always see cancer and the things it's doing to the sufferer - except when you go bald and make the choice to tell those who didn't already know. and then is the time that people stare and pull their children away - but not everyone is like it, thank God. I don't blame them - as I think it's a fear that is normal and it's up to us to help them realise that the person they know is still there underneath the cancer and is still the same - except that their world has been turned upside down.
Cancer has let me know who real friends are. Some have surprised me totally & unbelievably in their kindnesses, and with others the friendships have deepened to a level that lets me know how deep that friendship was anyway and that perhaps neither of us really knew until this rollercoaster began. I have recieved a few surprises and some of them have left me breathless - to know in my heart that I am loved so much. If you had asked me before this all began, I would have probably said that I believed I was mostly an option in a lot of people's lives, only to learn now that I'm actually a priority and that my feelings in any particular friendship were reciprocated - just that I never knew it.
"Don't walk behind me; for I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me; for I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend."
Albert Camus
"Friendship is when people know all about you but like you anyway. " :-) author unknown
~ Emily Kimbrough
~ Unknown
~ Unknown
~ Grace Pulpit
I want to thank my friends with every fibre of my heart. You are making this unforseen journey tolerable, despite the 'down' days, because I WILL KNOW, even in the darkest hours which may be yet to come, that you are there and that I am loved. There are never enough words to say thank you at times like this, but a touch, a smile, just a look or a simple email is all that is needed and that's what you give me.
Blessings to you all, this day and be sure my love is reciprocated forever....
YOU ARE MY STRENGTH AND MY LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL :-)
