May 2015.
The past few months have been good and bad. On a personal level, everything is great. I am working with my trainers, Ben & Phil, 3 times per week since February and I am starting to feel the effects of the work that I am doing. Nobody told me that shaking my money maker would be so difficult. It is all worth it though. I feel awake and so much stronger. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of pain involved…..A LOT OF PAIN. Ben and Phil like to take the IF tag line “No Excuse” to the extreme level. I have no excuse but to get my butt in there and work hard. I am starting to enjoy this thing they call exercise.
In the other part of my cancer life, both Char and Lindsey took drastic turns for the worse. Char’s liver was overtaken by her cancer. It was bad. The last time that I saw her, I asked if she would go to Germany for treatment. She seemed to be at a point where she didn’t want to do chemo and her faith in the medical system was gone. I suppose, she was just done. Done with all of it. Her kick-ass, crazy girl fight was diminished. She had accepted her fate. Kelly and I had lunch in late March and when I asked about Char, Kelly looked shocked and told me that she had passed away. I started to cry. I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. I knew that she was sick, really sick but I didn’t think that we were here…not yet. I am upset that I didn’t go see her. What was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn’t. Or maybe I was afraid to face the reality of what was happening.
Too soon after we lost Char, Lindsay also passed away. We had just seen her in February at the meeting with the German doctors and she seemed to be doing well. Scared obviously, but she looked well. Kelly and I had been trying to plan another get together with the Pole Dancers when news came from Lindsay’s husband that she had taken a dramatic turn. Cancer did exactly what she had always feared that it would. It overcame her.
Lindsay’s funeral was on Mother’s Day. I could not bring myself to go and say goodbye to her. My fear was paralyzing. I could not face the possibility of what my future held. Emotionally, I was too weak to handle the loss. I just couldn’t do it.
While I have always had the underlying cancer fear of “what if”, the fear…or more like terror was back with a vengeance. Losing two friends within two months of each other is overwhelming. It shook the four of us to our core. I could feel a definite shift in our little group. I wasn’t going to appointments with Dr. Sanjay any longer and Kelly was doing everything in her power to get me back there. She knew how critical these treatments were for our longevity. My level of denial was so acute that I could not see past it.
Kelly guided me through the process and helped me understand that what I was feeling was okay. One thing in this process has always been clear to me, I am so grateful for Kelly’s friendship. Meeting her was one of the best things that happened to me. Kelly isn’t a cancer survivor, she is a warrior. She has changed the face of cancer and what it means to have this nasty disease.
Kelly and I have lunch before we both go away for our summer vacations. I am heading to Europe for a wedding at the end of May and Kelly is off to Germany with her kids in July. We promise to get Tina and Bonnie together for a celebration of life to remember Char and Lindsay when we both return.
Our summer plans are exciting. We have many laughs at lunch that day. Little do we know that there is more change to come.
= Kim
photo: the internet