Laughter and Friends, Friends and Laughter

Have you ever heard of Cairing Bridge?  It's a free website where people with illness can write about what is going on in their lives and share it with those who want to know what is happening.  It's a great site for those who live far away and those who life close by but you still don't see them every often.  This was my Cairing Bridge Journal update yesterday.  I thought I would share it with you as well.  

Any day is a good when you have friends and laughter.  Recently I was blessed with  a wonderful day of both.  A friend and I had been trying to get together for some time for lunch.  However,  she would be ill, or I was, or there were 4 more inches of snow of the ground, or it  was raining so hard you just couldn’t see.  So the lunch date was postponed over  and over again.  

Finally, we decided to just do it!  We picked another date and  unless the Lord came to take us all home, we were going out to eat lunch!! She  picked me up at my house and off we went.   I remember thinking that she was one very slow driver but since I love her I would  keep that to myself. I did tell her that in NH a person could take a right on a red light and that she had the right of way (I’m helpful that way you know).

We arrived at the Longhorns Steakhouse Restaurant and got a parking space right by the door.   It was a sunny afternoon and I was waiting to play catch up with her and all that has been going on in her life.   Instead there were 24 other ladies waiting at our table!!! They all wanted to  celebrate with me that the stem cell transplant my Oncologist down here wanted was  postponed by the transplant doctor up in Lebanon.  We will change meds. We're going to up the strength of one and add a steroid and see if that works.  If it works, then the transplant will continue to be on hold. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll talk…

 So for the next 2+ hours, we laughed, took pictures, talked, got caught up with each other’s lives, sang and cried tears of joy.  We ended up having 3 waitresses caring  for us.  The table was set in pretty girly pink with glow-in-the-dark light up rings, a Tiara and a Feather Boa for me to wear and of course a magic wand to wave.  There were  pink “Jewels” and small paper purses all over the table and HUGE pink balls hanging from the Antler lamps and on the table.  OH And there were cards and gifts.

The  cards were so funny and made me laugh (you know those are keepers) and gifts  were so sweet. Among the gifts was a coffee cup with “You are a Courageous Woman” on the outside and a  scripture verse around the rim (Joshua 1:9); a happy thought for each day flip book; and  beautiful note paper with a matching pen for the fridge (these ladies know me!).

The  cards were passed around so that each one could read and laugh at the crazy friends I have. These ladies have been praying us through cancer for 2 years now.  They haven’t let down once to check in with me and talk to me and even told me that my hair looked great and – which is only about 1 inch long so not much to look at.

Now I understand why my friend Linda drove so slow, she was giving the ladies more time to get to Longhorns and get set up at the table before her and I got there.  Sneaky lady - I love her.  That's her behind me in the photo.  

Besides all the fun the ladies and I had, it was also a day that some of the men were caring for Gerry, laughts, BBQ burgers, stories and friendship for him as the caregiver.  That made the day extra special!