Get by with a little help from my friends

I have a routine that I treasure. When I can carry out these activities, I can imagine that everything is right in the universe.

Starting on Sunday I run or walk, depending on how debilitated our bodies are at that that particular moment from injury, treatments or surgery, with my friend Peter. Following that I have coffee and rearrange the world, or at least what social life I have, with Alison. On Sunday afternoon you will find me with Susan and sometimes her son Nick in the off leash walking the four dogs. She has the three dogs.

Every morning Monday through Friday I walk for an hour with Gerry. Sometimes my wonder Yorkie joins us, but never if it is wet or chilly. She hides until I leave the house.

On Tuesdays, I have yoga with Jennie. One year we took Zen meditation from a monk in a small stinky apartment. We attended a session on grief through the Jungians. That was intense. People cried at every meeting. Some years we have attend alternative religious sessions when K. our yoga takes a break. This year we are taking belly dancing. No recital for me, I already warned her.

On Saturday mornings and sometimes Wednesday after work I run with Michael. Beautiful life I think.

And, about 11 or 12 years ago, Alison and I started a bridge group of eight women. So far only one woman has dropped out…well, she moved to British Columbia but she comes back annually so we play with nine women. Someone is always glad to sit out.

The Bridgettes, as I have lately decided to call us, meet through thick and thin at each other’s houses. We eat cheezies, bridge mix, drink, catch up, commiserate and oh, yeah, we do play a hand or two of bridge. When we started out, we had to break for summer and holidays with children but that is all history now.

We don’t have many hard and fast rules except one..no criticism of each other’s playing, despite how bone-headed the play might have been. Like trumping your partner’s ace. Once we had a woman who joined us for a bridge retreat who said to one of us, me in fact, “Why would you do something that stupid?” I said that she played bridge at a much higher level than I did. Maybe I might have trumped her ace. But, this woman was not welcome at further bridge games. That is the Bridgette basics.

We have seen each other through many life changes such as divorces, unexpected job loss, 9/11, parental deaths, strokes, and children’s marriages.

Menopause has meant that we continually lose track of who dealt, what’s trump and what was the bid….this conducted to the sound of fanning and jackets being cast off as we have hot flashes.

And we have our own unique medical cluster. We are about the same age, ethnic origin, education and socio-economic status and four out of nine of us have had breast cancer. WOW!

Beth was the first with breast cancer. She dove into the diagnosis and treatment with vigor and courage. It was surgery and then radiation. We beat our breasts to beat that cancer back from our Brigette. To symbolize how covered her with our love we made her quilt. The cancer came back in her bowels so she has been going through chemo to continue to beat that brute back for over year. She has such courage. So far so good, especially since she found a new love.

Berni was next. She faced surgery, then surgery again, followed by radiation with courage and dignity. Again we rallied the troops. We delivered so much food to her house that the message got passed for us to hold back on the food. Berni and her husband could not being to eat all the food that showed up.

As Berni’s husband worked in construction we set up a schedule to drive her to radiation which was once a day for four weeks. I coordinated the schedule. There were some dicey moments setting this up because there were people who wanted to do more than their share, leaving others with no chance to Drive Ms. Berni. I had to be firm with these overachievers. They were not allowed to hog one whole week.

We wanted to remain along side of Berni as she moved through this experience. And we did this thanks to the talented seamstress in our midst who made her a blue jacket with our names written on the red lining. She can feel our support when she wears this garment.

Bobbi broke the news to us at bridge that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. We were all prepared to jump into breast cancer support mode when she gently told us that it was not her way to make a big fuss. She wanted to get her surgery and whatever treatment was needed and just put it behind her. A large portion of her breast right up to her breast plate and twelve lymph nodes were removed. Even though she didn’t want anything we could not accept this. S we gave her a sophisticated pink scarf, soft and beautiful to wrap her in our loving thoughts.

The last to date is me. My friends came to chemo with me, sent me cards, called me, emailed me. I felt so loved and supported. And, they came up with the most perfect show of their strength and love for me. It is a string of worry beads made up of quite large and wonderfully coloured stones and stored in a marvellous handmade bag. I brought it with me to the Cancer Institute whenever I went. Just touching the beads gives me a thrill of pleasure and comfort.

So the Bridgettes provide me with an enduring sense of womanly community. Whenever we meet one of the women will stare hard at me. I wait for the verdict. "Your new white head of hair looks good and so do you." I breathe a sigh of relief. I am safe for a while.