Thursday

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Mark Twain

Indeed.

It has been a while since I have visited this blog. I could make excuses, but what it comes down to is this:  I hate cancer and all the things that surround it.

No, I am not afflicted. However, I am affected.

I have this friend who is fighting, and fighting hard. The chemo has taken her from a robust, sassy, spit-in-the-face-of-adversity type to someone who, quite frankly, looks like a walking skeleton. She props herself on a cane to walk, and suffers from almost constant mouth sores, which keep her from eating anything substantial.

She is living what I fear most.

My friend Mikey also suffered from cancer. He had close to a year after his diagnosis. A year filled with chemo and no hair and pain and watching his family watch him die.

That last is the hardest part, I think. Knowing that your family knows what you are going through, and knowing there is no way to keep them from feeling the pain. Watching them try to keep happy and upbeat for you, when they know it's all a lie.

I try to do what I can for my friend. The days she is able to work, I bring her a protein-packed smoothie for breakfast. Some days she requests strawberry/banana; others she wants something to soothe the sores as it goes down. She has a positive mindset through all of it; the "treatments" and the low energy and the sores and the pain.

She's a much better person than I could ever be.