support

When I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, the only support group I could find that dealt specifically with gyn cancer was at the hospital where my oncologist has his practice. It meets once a month, right during rush hour. His office is not really far from me from a mileage perspective, but traffic around my area is like rush hour all the time during normal hours, and our gridlock rush hour is from around 3:00 pm to 7:30 pm. So that support group didn't really meet my needs. I was totally in the dark about gyn cancer - having cervical cancer actually taught me how little I actually knew about my reproductive system, despite having been through a private sex ed class, sex ed through my junior high, and actually having a baby. I needed answers, I needed to feel like I wasn't alone, I needed to feel undamaged. Enter the internet, more specifically Facebook.

I joined a few groups dealing with gyn cancer, cervical cancer, gyn cancer awareness products (cancer silver lining - awesome swag), hysterectomy support, and chat groups for women with cancer to get to know each other beyond our diseases. And I made some amazing friends, all across the world.

I can see the skeptical look on your face. I know that you are thinking, "How can you consider these women TRUE friends when you have never met face to face, and will most likely not meet the vast majority of them?" You may not understand, but here it is.

These women are all like me. They are living with a potentially fatal illness, of which there is no cure. Not only that, this isn't the kind of cancer that gets attention, most likely because there is a tie-in to sex, and that makes people uncomfortable. So we feel isolated. Susan G doesn't care about us, Avon isn't spending 3 days walking for us. We have some great celebrity advocates, like Camille Grammar and Mrs. Maryland 2014 Zareana Jess-Huff. But we're not breast cancer. We're not pink. We are teal.

These ladies I have never met, who I will never meet, have touched my life profoundly. We have shared struggles, joys, setbacks, and sorrows. We have mourned those taken too soon. We have cheered declarations of NED. We are up in the middle of the night when someone can't sleep due to anxiety, pain, or just the fucked up reality of having cancer. Because that's why we're awake too.

Yes, it is painful to watch these women in pain from so far away, and not even be able to offer a hug. And it hurts like hell to see a message that someone has gained her wings. But without these groups, and these women, I would never have made it through.

You still may not understand. It may still baffle you that I can love with my whole heart people I probably wouldn't recognize if I passed on the street. And that's fine. Because I know that these women have and will always be my rock, my sounding board, soother of my deepest fears.

Most importantly, they are my teal sisters.