Okay, time for a happy post.
Confession time: growing up, I had mostly male friends. This was pretty much an accident - my interests were, at the time, mainly male-dominated. As time went on, I awkwardly stumbled toward the goal of building a social life that also contained a group of strong, supportive women. And I mean awkwardly.
So, here I am, planning my post-treatment wedding (which, by the way, is a pretty big act of hope), and I realize that I've reached place where I can muster up a big pack of bridesmaids, all from different places and points in my life, all absolutely incredible women. And I'd totally have a dozen bridesmaids if it wouldn't be ridiculous. (Not to mention an imposition - asking all of my gal friends in the world to color coordinate seems unnecessarily cruel.)
I've met some female cancer patients since the diagnosis who are the strongest people I've ever known. My doctors are also incredible, geeky, brilliant ladies. And I'll probably write a completely separate post about how the women in my family are facing this disease with me, because it would just choke me up right now.
I love you all, and I'm so grateful that you're in my life.
When you face cancer, some people want you to come out of it completely different, treasuring every single moment. Honestly, I think it's effing impossible to treasure it all, especially the parts where you take off a hat and your wig decides it's a good time to hurtle into the air like a furry meteor, or where your good friends klonopin and ativan are the only things keeping you from solid panic, or where you need to jump in the bath for the sixth time that day just to quiet the pain in your bones. A friend of mine and I were talking about how cancer hasn't fundamentally changed who we are - it hasn't given us a personality-ectomy.
But there are a few small, cheesy ways that I've changed. I pause more often than I used to (which was, actually, pretty often, because I'm a sap like that) to appreciate things like this.
