Fridays With Doreen

Eight weeks ago today I sat quietly in my recliner in the Cancer Circle (as I like to call it) receiving my second Taxol/Herceptin treatment at the Cancer and Blood Disease Center. Sitting in the recliner to my left was a seemingly cheerful older woman who, I overheard, was in for her first chemotherapy treatment. I also overheard her talking to the nurse about having lived in California and that she used to be a mental health nurse.

Now, I had never been much for conversation when I was there, as I usually tended to feel quite out of sorts and not at all myself, but my first Taxol/Herceptin treatment left me feeling relatively good and I felt up for conversation, so I asked Doreen about her life. We talked for the rest of the time we were there that day, which was quite a while as we both have treatments that run for approximately 6-7 hours in total.

The following Friday I walked back to the Cancer Circle and saw that there was a seat open next to Doreen. I happily took the seat and we chatted away the time. She gave me string cheese, dried fruit and nuts, although I had nothing to offer her.

We continued on this way, although we were not always able to sit near enough to one another to really be able to chat. Doreen has made me lunch on numerous occasions and brought me citrus fruit and small citrus trees and she has made me several knitted hats to keep my bald head warm (not to mention bags full of knit hats that she made and donated to keep other's heads warm). I have brought her strawberries and string cheese and, hopefully, as many smiles as she has brought me.

Today was Doreen's last of her eight treatments and while I am very happy that she does not have to have any more chemo at this time, I am going to miss her. We were able to sit near each other and chat today, and even though I didn't feel up to doing much talking for a couple of hours, the talk time we did manage to squeeze in was quite nice.

I have always dreaded going to the cancer center because that is the place I go to get shot up with drugs and poisons that make me feel disjointed, nauseated, achy, cranky, tired, out of sorts, not myself, weak, irritated and generally uncomfortable; but I found myself actually looking forward to chemo days because I got to see Doreen. We exchanged addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, so hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch, but I'm going to miss Fridays with Doreen.