Team HOPE...In Good Company

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This is one is all about some of my  fellow "team mates" ....I thought they deserved their own post. 

After I left my first meeting at the Radiation Oncology Dept, I cried on my way home because for the first time since this whole ordeal started I actually felt like a “Cancer Patient”. All of us there had it, and the information from the doctors with all the ifs and lack of certainty was just too much. The fellow ladies in the waiting room were all comparing notes on their treatments. One even showed me the skin discolorations in her chest (pretty darn black) “You get roasted like a chicken” another one said…But the good news though is that I’m actually in pretty good company. Most of the cancer patients I’ve met have the best sense of humor, so much courage… full of good advice..

Here are a few of them:

1)      Don’t be put off treatments, the sooner you start, the sooner you will end. (I think this is applicable to any unpleasant situation or actions we are trying to avoid in life)

2)       On my concern of darkening of the skin: should be last of your worries… when you are dealing with your life.

3)      Surround yourself only with positive upbeat people – avoid drama. (true not just for Cancer)

4)       If you they say "no" to you, ask some one else, until you get the answer you need.

5)      Take things one day at the time, one thing at time, and don’t forget to laugh. On feeling overwhelmed with too many things on your plate and not knowing where to start.    

This last one, sounds so simple, yet at least for me is a slow one to learn. 

The Team Motto

Almost all of them are at least a good 20 years older, some of them with much more serious conditions. There was couple on my second visit, he has stage 4 brain cancer – a pretty dismal prognosis. And we were making fun, comparing our scars. Is gotten to the point the wife has to drive him & help him with everything. I never seem a couple bicker so much, and at same time show that much love for each other. There was another lady, that after undergoing treatments all week, she told me goes and work 8-10 hrs days over the weekend cleaning at a hotel. She said that it is not just for the money, (she could have easily gone on disability) it makes her feel productive. One of my favorites, was this little 70 something old lady that came up literally dancing out of the radiation room with her cane, announcing she was ready to go home and lay up butt naked in her bed… to put on the moisturizing cream up her tushy. (She is fighting colon cancer…) and she will pray her grandson won’t walk in on her like he did last time.

Oooh, seeing them, hearing them, makes me wonder what good bits of wisdom I’ll be able to develop from all this… that I could pass on to someone else. No idea…yet, but they are marinating…I’ll keep you posted.