A Little Help From My Friends

A lot of people have the same reaction when they find out I had cancer while trying to juggle 4 kids and a busy house…”how did you cope?”

COPE : definition-verb : Deal effectively with something difficult.

I was not coping in any way. I was just going thru the motions for the first little while. Eat, run, shower, cook, clean, drive, sleep. Then I put up the white flag, I needed help.

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I have to give a lot of credit to my therapist and my friends. During the first week after diagnosis, my life spiralled into a dark place. I was suffocating from fear and depression and I knew I needed help. I finally made an appointment to see my family doctor. She was kind and helpful and recommended that I try using the free resources at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. It was as easy as 1 phone call and they matched me up with a psychologist who specialized in blood cancers like lymphoma. Who knew that there would be therapists for specific types of cancer? I got an appointment to see someone before the week was over. Seeing her helped me to unload all my feelings and fear in a safe place without risk of burdening a friend or loved one. The load I was carrying everyday was so heavy that I needed to give it to someone else so that I could stand up again. She was that person for me every week for many weeks.

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While I was going to daily treatments solo or with Brent, I was in the treatment room alone. One day I realized that maybe Brent or my Aunt might be interested in seeing inside the radiation suite. See what the set up involves and what the machine looks like. Be able to ask questions to better help them understand what I was going thru and what they were going thru with me. My Aunt Lisa was the first person to come into the treatment room. She was interested and asked questions. The nurses explained everything they were doing to her in detail and then took her out to the computer to show her how the computer administers the radiation beams with me in the machine inside the room. At the end of it we both felt better. I felt like she was getting the experience (almost) from my perspective and an appreciation for the feel of the room and the sounds and smells that I now have marked in my memory. For me, it was letting someone IN. Letting them see me at my most vulnerable and let them carry some of that heavy load. It worked. In the days that followed Brent and 4 other dear friends came with me to treatment to share my heavy load and be a part of my healing. I was no longer having this experience alone like watching a movie and describing it to a friend, they were watching the movie with me.

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I appreciate the love and support I got from the small circle of friends who walked and sometimes carried me thru my cancer experience. Thank you is not adequate, I love each of you and appreciate you being in my life.