Friday the 13th

Oh, I know that by the calendar, today was not Friday the 13th. However, for me it really was Friday the 13th...in the best possible way. Today was my 13th chemotherapy treatment with only five more to go. Certainly nothing to be superstitious about.

One of the things I have found over the past 13 weeks is that  lot of people are there at the same time I am on Friday morning and are pretty much doing the same thing as I am doing. Today was no exception. For several weeks now I have had conversations with a woman who lives north of Columbia. I would say we have visited probably 6-8 times and today we finally got around to introducing ourselves. See, when you are sitting in a recliner having poison infused into your system, names just aren't important. Anyway this lady and I have a lot of fun with our conversation. She is a typical farm woman. A real sweetheart! We talk about anything and everything and spent over an hour doing that exact thing. She was only getting one drug today and it would take about an hour and a half. She was just getting hooked up to the IV when I got there. This was a two-drug day for me and that takes three and a half to four hours so I was going to be there for quite a while after Peggy was finished.

As I think I've mentioned before, I always take my Kindle along so I can read while being infused. Today I think I managed to read a total of two pages! Yes, Peggy and I talked non-stop while she was being infused. She was finished before my first drug was gone so I expected to return to my Kindle and spend the next hour or so reading. Wrong! There was a gentleman sitting across from me who struck up a conversation. Usually one of the first questions asked when meeting someone new is how many treatments do you have left. I told him that I have five and he told me he has four. The conversation went on from there. Once again, like the early weeks with Peggy, I have no idea what his name is, but even though his wife was there with him, we talked non-stop for the next hour or so until I was finished for the day. And another woman who was catty-corner from me started talking to me for the first time. I've seen her several times, but she always seemed so withdrawn that I didn't want to disturb her by talking to her. And another woman and her friend/driver were catty-corner the other direction and entered into the conversation, too. The gentleman is an engineer here in town who owns his own company. When he found out that I had served as advisor, he talked on and on about how he hires interns for the summer and then when they graduate most likely will hire them full time. Of course, that was only one of the subjects we talked about.

When I got home shortly after noon, I had lunch and then sat back and reviewed what had taken place that morning. I was really surprised at how fast I fell back into the advisor role when I was talking to the engineer and even the reserved woman. I've always know that I like to talk, but really what I was doing was what I did on the job...ask a question or make a comment and then sit back and let the other person talk. I don't know if there any big plan for how today unfolded, but I can't help but believe that there was. Even the staff commented on how we were all talking among ourselves. And they didn't tell us to hold it down because we were making too much noise. ha!

Even if there was no bigger plan for today, I must say I enjoyed this treatment more than I have any other. It reaffirmed for me that no matter who we are, we are all there for the same purpose and that common thread makes us friends. Am I looking forward to the end of this ordeal? Well, of course I am. I can think of a lot of things I would enjoy doing on Friday morning more than having a needle stuck into my chest so that I can have poison infused into my system. But it's not my choice...and the end is almost here. I can make it now because I've realized I have a lot of friends who I haven't met yet or if we've met, I don't know their name.

I am extremely blessed to have so many family and friends praying for me and sending me words of encouragement. They all mean so much to me. But I have other friends who I haven't met who mean just as much to me. How lucky can you get???

Once again, thanks for reading.
Amy