You are never alone

I cried my way through a pot luck lunch.

It's true
In between the broccoli salad and carrot soup I found myself looking for a tissue but ended up wiping tears away with a bounty oversized napkin.

It was our last livestrong class and as we sat on mini sized chairs and gymnastics mats in the babysitting room at the YMCA,  we went around the room and told our stories.

We had spent 12 weeks together and we knew this:
we were all survivors.
The how did we get here part was a bit unknown.

We each had our own story but with many common themes.

Here's what I can say about people who have gone through cancer:

It through us for a loop.
I suppose no one expects to ever get cancer but in spite of that, each of our lives were immediately turned upside down. Even a few of "us" immediately had to start treatment or surgery.
Immediately.
As in; should've been yesterday.

It changed us.

It's so cliche; I know.
We see things differently.
We want to give back in a way we didn't before.
We are kinder.
More sincere than before.
More present.

We learned to make ourselves a priority.

This was often hard. We are used to being the caretaker or the strong one or the one who never asks for help.
We are the people pleaser or the one to not make waves.
We learned we NEEDED others.
That part is harder than you think.

It's okay to cry.

I wasn't the only one in the room reaching for the bounty napkin.
Cancer scares the hell out of you.
We hate our hair and our scars and our fatigue (oh our fatigue!)
We hate our numbness and our nerve pain.
Our double vision, headaches, leg pain.
We hate complications from surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and implants.

We hate that we talk and think about cancer even after our treatment is over.
We hate being a burden.

But here
In the midst of the mini chairs and gym mats
In the middle of treadmills and weights and learning about yoga and nutrition
Here
In the middle of our local YMCA
we became a family.
We are a family of cancer patients and in this club that we didn't ever want to join.
We are in a club that, even though we have amazing friends and families, this club; this elite group- they are the only ones who truly get it.

As we told our stories, I looked around the room and saw us all nodding our heads.

Our eyes were fixated on the story teller and our hands were often reaching over for a supportive pat on the back.

One woman said if it wasn't for this class she may have not left the house for a while.
That spoke to me.
I shut myself off from life for a bit. Mostly during treatment. I needed to.
That's how I needed to heal.


We all grieve in different ways.
And we heal differently.
And medication reactions are different.
And treatments are different.

The common thread?

We get it.

You are not alone.

You are never alone.

(If newly diagnosed I give you this advice. Please reach out. To anyone. I reached out to a friend of a friend when re-diagnosed because I needed to talk to someone who had been there. I had questions that only another cancer patient could answer.  **And now she is no longer a friend once removed!** )