While at WalMart last week, during one my hardest days after chemo yet, the girls and I were waiting on a bench for my mom to be ready to take us home. I’d feel icky enough to be not want to drive myself to town that day.
Yes, that should have been the sign that I should have just stayed home. I know. Live and learn.
After a bit, I decided to use the bathroom, leaving Lyss and Liv on the bench watching our cartful of groceries.
As I started to enter the bathroom, I was stopped by a woman who was waiting outside the door for a friend.
She said, “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you a cancer survivor?”
I said, “Well, right now I’m a fighter, but I plan to be a survivor.”
She fist bumped me and told me she’d fought cancer five times. FIVE TIMES! Holy shit. Five freaking times. She explained that her first fight was with thyroid cancer, then she fought breast cancer four times.
She said her last fight ended seven years ago and she’s currently cancer free.
You go, Warrior Woman.
I told her I’d just had chemo three days prior which is why I looked so terrible.
She looked me in the eyes and said, “You look beautiful. You’re going to beat this and come out stronger.”
And then she let me go to the bathroom where I tried to poop for the seven hundredth time that day. (It didn’t work, but the third time I went in to try did so…aren’t you glad you read through this entire post?)
But honestly, other than my hat and chemo pallor, I wonder what gave me away as a cancer/chemo patient. As of this moment, I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes. I still have more weight on my bones than is necessary or even recommended.
Maybe once you go through this you just know. You recognize fellow members of the club you never wanted to join. Maybe.
A mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.
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