Cancer Moms

I belong to a special group of women

My friends and I have an amazing bond.

We never wanted to be in this group,

Yet we are in, for life.

Maybe we have met, maybe we haven’t,

Yet our love for each other is boundless.

We know the pain the other one feels,

And we share our victories small or huge.

Words like chemo, IV, Zofran , bald heads

Are always parts of our conversations,

As well as roidrage, tears, and meltdowns…

We always know where the closest puke bucket is ,

We can hold it in one hand and if necessary,

Swallow the sandwich the other hand was holding.

We can drive to the hospital ,

Park in the dark parking garage

Make our way thru the halls of the hospital

And to the appropriate floor,

Settle in a room, turn the TV on,

Give instructions to the head nurse,

Silence loud beeping IV pumps,

Direct a wagon AND an IV pole

To the playroom without hitting anything

Make our way back to the correct room

And all this, mind you, With our eyes closed at any given time.

We know how to draw blood from lines

Sticking out of little kids chests.

We can hold them down with one hand ,

While a nasogastric tube is inserted in their little nose,

And be on the phone with their dads at the same time.

We can live for days on hospital food,

And on maybe only one meal a day .

We know the names of up to 20 different drugs ,

Their purpose, dosage and time to be taken.

We are always on call, 24 hours a day ,

Seven days a week.

We are used to not always looking our best,

Hard to do with only a few hours of sleep . M

ake up , hair styling, skirts are words of the past .

We have become addicted to texting ,

hospital, clinic, home, wherever…

We talk sometimes at all hours of the night ,

We know we can count on someone to be up.

Then for one of us , the world stops .

She has to walk away, broken.

This job is over .

The job is over, but the fight is on.

Remember , I said we were in this forever.

We are friends, sisters, temporary nurses,

We are each others rock, each others punching bag,

We listen , we vent , we cry , we laugh together .

We share our lives and our deaths

We share our pain and our victories.

We are strong, but not by choice ,

Sometimes we win , sometimes we lose,

But never are we defeated .

We are not nurses

We are not doctors,

We are cancer moms…