How to write a letter to a friend with breast cancer
A Letter of Hope and Encouragement September 21, Note: If you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, please consider taking a few minutes to help us out by completing this short survey. And frankly, there were times when I worried that the questions -- not to mention the lack of answers to most of them -- might cause a million miniscule fractures in you and me and us, cracking and splintering until our friendship was nearly unrecognizable.
I later gave it to the dogs to play with. Yes, even if it worked. Take one day at a time and when that is too much, take one hour or even one minute at a time. Then we would go on talking like usual, except that "usual" included words like port and mastectomy, information about biopsy results and chemotherapy schedules.
Over time, the questions developed their own aura, almost like an unnameable but unmistakably present scent, lingering in the room.
I feel your pain. You will face challenges, loneliness, stigma, gut-wrenching grief, life-changing surgeries. Of course, many of the weightiest questions weren't mine, but yours, and I was simply a conduit through which the questions were voiced. And one of the worst parts about that is your sense of isolation.
I hated that we lived so far away from each other, though we texted on a daily -- sometimes hourly -- basis. Dear Friend The GLM website contains a whole host of thank you notes written by patients who received the letters.
Even when it is not well with your circumstances, it CAN be well with your soul.
How to write a letter to a friend with breast cancer
If you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, please consider taking a few minutes to help us out by completing this short survey. And, perhaps scariest of all, will you be OK? My husband even used my Caring Bridge page to provide updates during my surgery. Keep in touch by email, ideally, just as you would if nothing was wrong. It came back after 17 years in the same breast I survived it before I can do it again. Let others grocery shop, cook, clean, and help with kids if they offer. Some things I learned by asking questions, others I learned by bearing witness to your pain. And then, there are others who are somewhere between those extremes.I didn't know what to say, or what to do.