It Takes A Village

I'm not sure if I wrote about these thoughts/experiences. If I have, please forgive me. Time becomes a funny thing during this journey. For the longest time my mind simply would not and could not plan or look out beyond a few months. It was too painful and emotionally and physically uncertain to.

Most stories I hear about getting cancer have had one commonality. "The outpouring was amazing, community, etc "

I chose not to expose myself to the possibility of knowing and having this support, and I wonder these days if that was a bad decision.

My parents have kept things "top secret". I'm generally a private person, and from my experience with a really hard time in my life after grad school, I learned people may mean well, but when going through a prolonged hard period of time, it can get old for many people. During those hard times, there were friends I lost. Yes one does find out who her true friends are during hard times...but in this respect I wouldn't mind living a lie and being surrounded by a ton of people.

The handful of friends I told have overall been amazing. This is also why they are the handful of friends I opened up to.

Recently an acquaintance posted about her friend on Facebook. He was around my age, also Asian- American, and was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. He took the opposite approach I did. He posted about it on Facebook, had a fundraiser on go-me, he took videos about his chemo, the process etc

I'm not normally a jealous person, but I felt really jealous. Then I reminded myself, I could do the same and possibly be very surprised by an outpouring of compassion etc but I felt safer not to. And that's okay too. Because there is no right or wrong way to go about this journey.

I had coffee with a colleague who was very open about her cancer journey and had a #FuckCancer party when she was done. She very much viewed everything as a fight, overcoming things, etc

To me, I don't see things as a fight, battle etc just the sound of those words is exhausting to me. Surgery after surgery, the blood draws, finger sticks, port flushes, ginger chews (thank you EB :), my chemo outfit, chemo kit, frozen socks....they are all simply things I had to do and wasn't given much choice about.

Yes, in theory I could have said no. But when your father is an Oncologist, and friends with the Oncologist you've chosen to treat you...I did not really have the energy or knowledge to fight their opinions on anything. It was simply, when do I need to be here by.

So I thought the end of chemo would bring this "hurrah" moment.

My way of celebrating the end of chemo is, I got to meet up with a childhood friend for a drink that night. I love seeing her, and she is one of the friends I've grown closer to during this time. Always says the right thing, let's me be me, etc

Then I am going to the Ritz-Carlton in Westchester, NY today with a friend. We rented the suite and are going to have a slumber party /spa night.

For Memorial wknd next wknd, I had a very big dilemma.