Chemo Day

You're not even the person having chemo. But your best friend is. And you wake up knowing that today is the day, in every part of your body, mind — and heart.

I woke up today with a piercing headache. The kind of throbbing, pulsing headache that envelops everything, had me grasping for the Tylenol frantically through eyes still half-closed and sticky with sleep.

At first, I thought it was the humidity, that late September blanket of suffocating haze that had fallen upon our waterside community on the same day that throngs of pumpkin-pickers and harvest fair seekers filled the roadways, rendering left turns next to impossible.

And then, I thought, “Well, it’s Monday. Lots of work ahead today and meetings, deadlines. Must be stress.”

Finally, my mind caught up to what my body innately knew, in every pore and molecule and nerve ending: It was chemo day. My best friend of 47 years was heading back for a new and aggressive chemo featuring a full range of debilitating side effects that would have broken a person with less ferocity of spirit.

It was the strangest thing. Every since she’d kicked off chemo, two years ago now, I felt those treatment days in my very soul. There were the physical impacts — that drumbeat of a headache, a stomach tossing with tension, hands that shook, slightly, the whole day, until the phone call came that Chrissy was home and safe.

And then there were the emotional impacts. The fear, the tears, the prayers, so many prayers, that this devil chemo with its army of indignities would actually do its job and work, save my best friend, bring her back to a life with dreams still to realize and plans to make.

We’ve been friends so long, she and I, that we’ve shared all the big days. And little days. All the moments with meaning that make up a lifetime. I’ve cheered for her career successes, waited for the news that the babies had been born healthy, helped her straighten her veil as part of my maid-of-honor duties, stood beside her at her beloved grandmother’s funeral.

But on all of those days, we’d been together. On chemo day, I sat alone. Waiting. Hoping. Crying. Praying. All alone, waiting for that call. The blessed call from my best friend, telling me that she was home and okay, back from the veritable war zone of her personal battlefield, all in one piece.

And only when that call came, would the headache finally, finally dissipate, my body telling me what my heart had so needed to hear: Chrissy was home.

Chrissy and I are preparing to kick off a Substack podcast, “Besties Talk Cancer,” that’s being planned as we finish our book — a book about best friends navigating cancer and all the questions and emotional challenges that arise along the way. This podcast will be your place, a place for best friends to grab a cup of coffee, open up and share what’s on your hearts, the painful truths that need to be said so you can ease your fears and find blessed peace in knowing, truly, that you are not alone. Details will be coming soon. We can’t wait for you to join us.