last november, i received an email from a good friend of mine. it turns out that her childhood friend was diagnosed with a type of thyroid cancer. she asked me to contact her friend to help her with concerns she was having about her diagnosis. so i did. i wrote her about my entire experience. from the symptoms to how i've lived with it. i shared my experiences with my doctors, the surgery, the recovery, the radiation treatment, and my body scan check ups. we'd been emailing one another as well as spoken on the phone (right before her surgery) ever since. actually, we are both on gchat and instant message every now and then. she's a grad student at berkeley and is local, sort of. we'd been playing with the idea of meeting up, finally. to match a face with the voice. last thursday, we met up for dinner at xanh in mt. view. my treat.
it was really nice to finally meet her. when my friend made this request, i didn't think twice about contacting her. i'd been in her shoes. while thyroid cancer is the best cancer to get if you were given a choice of any one cancer to be stricken with, as it is curable, it's still a very scary ordeal. it's life changing. certainly, it's changed my life. it would have been nice to have someone who had gone through it to ask questions and concerns. i was glad to be that person for someone else.
we met up at 6:30 and talked and ate well through 2 hours. it turned out that we had more than scars in common. luckily for her, she did not have cancer. hers was benign. she had a partial thyroidectomy. we were both young, strong, intelligent women with similar views on life, love, and spirituality. it's really amazing how well we got along and how we seem to be on the same wavelength. the dinner would have lasted longer except, i was late picking up my niece and nephew! so we said we would do it again.
and she brought me a little thank you gift. this book, which was really thoughtful and sweet of her. i felt bad that i came empty handed. luckily, i was able to treat her to dinner!
