From the heart...please don't judge

My next door neighbour is a wonderful woman. Over the past three years we've become good friends.  She's a lot of fun, kind and generous, and welcomed us to our new home by inviting us to her husband's 50th birthday party shortly after we moved in.  We've been firm friends since.  She and her husband are 20 years older than us but you wouldn't know it (I don't know if that's a reflection on us or them to be fair), and we've had many a fun evening in one another's company.

About 7 months ago she emailed me to tell me that she'd been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus.  She was too upset at the time to speak on the phone.  

Whilst there are many things I'm poor at, I am quite good in a crisis. I waited a couple of days then turned up at hers with some flowers and let her cry on me whilst staying dry-eyed myself. She was relieved by that as all her longer-standing friends had been in floods of tears and it had made it worse for her. I stayed strong, then went home to my beloved and bawled my eyes out.

So on she went to chemo, and that made her so, so ill. I went with her for one session and stayed for hours.  The thought of that ward, with literally dozens of people all on their drips, stays with me. The nurses and doctors there are incredible. My neighbour jokingly calls it the 'milking shed' as she feels like one of dozens of cows!! The medical staff there love her, she's always laughing and joking with them.  But god she was ill. And we visited when she was well enough. And not long after it finished she was back up and partying again, twinkle back in her eyes, flirting in her wig!

Then her op. Huge op. Weeks in hospital. We fed their cats every day so her husband could stay all day with her. We had her husband over for New Years Eve so he could have a laugh. And as the weeks have gone on she's gotten stronger.

But the op hasn't gone as well as hoped. They didn't get everything.

So back to chemo for her starting again tomorrow, and I feel sick for her. She's been a complete inspiration to me since meeting her. And as she's been in the grip of this awful illness I've had further insights.  She'd always made out that them not having kids was through choice, but I know now her devastation at having an ectopic pregnancy. They'd have been amazing parents.   Still remembering my birthday despite everything going on. Wanting to hear about wedding plans.  And the job she does is amazing, protecting people and helping make our town safer.

I know, tragically, that the odds are stacked against her with her particular type of cancer and prognosis, and it kills me.

And yet, when I mention that she has cancer, the first thing people ask is 'does she smoke?'


Well yes, she does.  So what? Does that now mean that she deserves this? All the good that she does, that she deserves this awful illness that's making her physically shrink before my eyes?  It's a terrible conflict of emotion. She shouldn't be smoking and she knows that. But she basically has a death sentence hanging over her.


So please, I beg you, don't be someone who asks that question, or tuts if you hear of someone who smokes getting cancer.  This disease could affect one in three of us anyway, smoking or not. My friend does GOOD for people, she's kind and warm, and if this illness takes her, something huge will be missing from my life.


I sit here writing this and praying that some kind of miracle takes place over the next few weeks. I'll go to chemo with her and hold her hand and laugh about how silly our men and cats are, and plan my wedding, the wedding that I desperately want her to be able to come to next year.


Please don't judge those who are suffering with cancer.  Please spare a thought for my friend and hope that things get better so that we can sit together and share that bottle of rum we brought her back from holiday, so that her husband (also lovely), doesn't have to grow old without her. 


I fucking hate cancer.