The Best

("Bestie" here...) Imagine your best day. BEST. For me it would include sleeping in. Having a chef bring me some crazy egg dream dish, but not in bed because, well, gross. Then Sara and I go shopping with Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear, with credit cards they provide because after 9 kids between us we need someone else to tell us what jeans fit, remind us why we actually should care about how we look, and remind us that showering every day IS what grown-ups do. Then my hubby and I go to a movie of my choice and have some yummers Indian dinner. At some point I take my kids to the perfect playdate, blah blah, blah...there are endless ways to write this story.

Now get cancer.

I think Sara's dream day looks like this: Get up at 8, feeling normal. Make breakfast for my kids. Have the energy to then do laundry. Clean the garage. Be normal. Bake some cupcakes to eat after the simple dinner I made. Put the kids to bed before 9. Sleep without waking up until the next morning. Repeat.

Oddly enough I know her perfect day does not include interferon treatments. There are good things about hanging out at the Cancer Care Center at Regions. Like a mini fridge with soda and the awesome nursing staff brings around a snack basket. Pretty posh. I hung out with Sara there for one of her treatments, and I can also say they place the bathroom nice and close so you only have to take a short walk with your IV to use it. We also go to hear a sweet little ditty a nurse sang (same tune as "Happy Birthday") to someone who was finishing her chemo. Hello?! Lorna Doones AND entertainment? How did I get in here without tickets? Oh right, my best friend has cancer. Maybe I'll have another packet of Oreos.

Sitting with Sara plugged in to her drug cocktail, you talk. You sit. Most of all you wonder. What are all the other people in here for? I imagine the same thing goes through the minds of jail inmates. But the woman in the corner with the lovely lavender scarf on her head did not steal a car, she got cancer. She is not being kept away from family, from her life to insure our safety or protect our way of life. She is being kept from her normal life to save hers. We wonder about her story. About all the stories.

You wonder what Sara's body is doing. How is it going to react today, tomorrow, to the drugs being pumped in. Well right now, she is tired. Feeling a lot like the worst first trimester (you know, ladies) you can imagine. She is an experiment for the nursing staff because they have very almost no experience with her kind of treatment. Sheryl (her fantastic nurse) checks in with her every day to see what changes. Are you nauseous? Tired? How are the bowels? Oh, you haven't slept in three days? We'll get you something for that. It isn't often that the medical staff can't really tell you what to expect. They can guess. They can wonder.

More than anything, we hope. We hope the other inmates will get out soon. To their families. To their normal. We hope the tired isn't forever, or the sleep will come, maybe the nausea was the virus the kids passed around. We hope that Sara will get through the next year of treatment without being wiped out all the time, and that she will get back to her monotonous, magical routine. We hope for Doritos tomorrow in the snack basket.

Maybe then Sara can reinvent her perfect day. I actually hope mine will start to look more like the one she wishes for now. So I'll try to find joy in the every day. Really, I make a pretty good egg white omelet, when I remember to eat. And Stacey and Clinton need to relax, and lower their hygiene expectations. We don't have time for perfect. It doesn't exist, anyway. We have now, and it makes that kitchen cleaning I'm avoiding look pretty darn romantic.