Two Mets in Conversation

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Yesterday I had a really nice lunch with my friend Audrey from The Journey blog. It was a nice day so we jumped on the idea of an outdoor restaurant. We picked a table with an umbrella right near a wall fountain. It was really quite nice.

We spent most of our time in an honest conversation about where we are now, with our cancers and where we are going. Nothing was off limits. We discussed the side effects of our treatment and cancers, we talked about misconceptions about cancer, we talked about misconceptions about what people do when they are facing death, and everything in between.

Both Audrey and I talked about how fortunate we both felt that pain isn’t part of our daily life. Most of the discomfort we have comes from our treatment regimen. We talked about the chills she was experiencing with her chemo. I could so relate because last year Taxotere gave me lots of chills. We talked about cancer cures that are promoted with no legitimate proof. We talked how we felt uncomfortable when people who hadn’t experienced cancer offered strong opinions and advice.

We also talked about facing death and what we wanted to do with our time left. I think we both felt it was important to have something to look forward to all the time … it might as simple as going for a walk to the local coffee shop or it might be something bigger such as planning visits with the family and such. Often when people are asked what they would do if they faced death … ‘well I’d spent my time travelling’ is what you often hear but in reality, our feelings seemed to be that we just continue with our regular life. We might spice it up with a few more interesting experiences or purchases but it seems we just wanted to spend time with our support system … our friends and family.

Those couple of hours went by real quick. I said to Audrey that I am so glad our paths crossed some two years ago at the Cross Cancer Clinic.

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