Degrees of perspective

My lovely friend, Pop, as any of you who read regularly know, was diagnosed two weeks ago with breast cancer and told, at that stage, she’d probably have to have a mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. She was devastated, as we all were. It was like somebody had dropped me onto the ground from a huge height and winded me, when she told me.

She had lots of tests, they took out the offensive lump, and found another. More worry, more scariness. And then, more tests, and waiting, while this ‘thing’ hung around in the air, flapping its dark wings annoyingly. The tests came back, with results that made us all (wierdly, considering) whoop with joy. It’s the slow-growing kind – she will need a mastectomy, can choose if she wants both, and, possibly (she sees the oncologist today) choose whether or not to have chemotherapy or hormone therapy.

Two weeks ago, that would never have made me whoop with joy. Strange how one’s perspective changes so quickly. Obviously, now is the really difficult time – these are huge decisions she has to make, all with pro’s and con’s. It’d be so much easier if the doctors just said ‘You have to do this’, which, obviously, they can’t. Hopefully things will be a little clearer after her visit today!

In the meantime, she turned 37 yesterday and we all celebrated with a delicious meal at a little Greek place down the road – lovely food, good company and a chocolate cake with flowers on it that my mother kindly made for her. She decorated it with some beautiful camellias which came with gratis tiny snail who looked bewildered to be in a greek restaurant, poor poppet.

Let’s all hold thumbs for an easier decision road for her, shall we?