Hard News From a Friend

Saturday, I received word that my friend's cancer has returned.  Metastasized.  Lung and bone.  There are reasons to be hopeful--four years have passed since her first incident--and more will be known by the end of this week as tests are performed, evaluated and interpreted.

Most of what she and I spoke of concerned what she wants to plan and achieve in the next six months.  She is feeling the pressure of time.  Me, I know that much of my fear and curl-up-to-sob sadness is because of past experience with cancer and people I love.  So I force myself to dwell on the facts--her baseline health, her decision to incorporate alternative medicine into standard treatments, her positive outlook.  All of those factors are in my friend's favor when compared to others.

I wish I could drop everything and see her right now.  Yesterday.  But that isn't going to happen, and not in small part because she doesn't want everyone to converge upon her as if the world will end tomorrow.  Cancer is the shits.

In the meantime, I have wellness and writing posts to put up over the next couple days.  I have a website to finish, an ebooklet to complete, and classes to schedule.  I have Chant revision notes to consider--and I am still seeking one more beta reader, if anyone is interested in a 130K dark-ish fantasy--and Drunk words to write.

But I'm having trouble tracking what I read, let alone what I write.  I'm going to give myself the rest of today to get my head on straight, then I'll be writing again--even if every word is crap.  I think the news, coming as it did so unexpectedly and at this time of year, kinda threw me more than I expected it to.  (It was about this time last year when Dev's father began his cancer journey.)  But today is better, I'm planning time to spend with my friend, and my feet are on the ground again.  It'll just take a day for the brain to catch up.