The Group

"Gosh", I said to Jennifer. "I'm gonna have to stay down at this end of the room because those three women are talking continually. It's like white refrigerator noise. It's driving me crazy." (It was my volunteer/patient day at CCNC.) She cut those baby-blues at me and said with a snicker, "And this, coming from you????

She then reminded me of our old chemo group. It was three to five of us girls who happened to sit down at one end of the treatment room. We were all outgoing, talkative, and at times, loud.
Always laughing, having fun and making other patients avoid us like the plague because of it.
No one slept down in our corner. Rarely did any of us have a bad day once we had spent it with each other. I look back on that group and think about where we have all gone, what we are all doing, HOW we are all doing. Dawn, Barb, Sue, Paulette and myself spent one season of summer/fall all together at the far end of the chemo room. Being our own little support system....sisters in the fight. Breast, ovarian, colon...Stage IVs the whole lot. It is pretty amazing to think that we found each other under the worst of circumstances. Dawn, Sue, and I were carry-overs from the old office location. Living our lives straight past the percentage predictions of our circumstance. We are all three approaching our 5-year anniversary of living
with what was supposed to have killed us.

The group is no longer intact. We lost Paulette, a soldier who entered her fight way too late in the game but laughed along with us until she was sent home with nothing more to be done. Barb has not had to come back.....and I hope it stays that way for many more years to come. Sue, Dawn, and I have all had breaks over the past six months, but we each know how the other is doing. Dawn is off to have some surgery...ever aggressive...always attacking her enemy. Sue is opening up a bike shop with her daughter, and me...well you know what I've been up to....living life as large as I can.

If you take a good look at us.....Dawn and Sue and I.....battling the hard way since the winter of 2004....it is remarkable that all three of us; one in their thirties, one in their fifties, one in their sixties; all three of us Stage IVers are still alive and kicking and screaming against the enemy. A true testament to our great healers, both human and divine.

So the next time there are a group of women cackling continuously in the corner of a medical treatment area, you just might not want to avoid them. They could have the secret.....they could know the skinny....their ability to cause such a commotion every time they are together could be just what the doctor ordered. I believe those times together, laughing and supporting each other is definitely a piece of the puzzle...faith, medicine, family, friends and finding people like you.....that fit together and give you a longer fuller life, even when the enemy is ever-circling the group of LOUD and happy soldiers.

"A cheerfull heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22