If you were asked to think about your friends and what they mean to you, how would you describe them? For me, the ones who count make you laugh, and occasionally cry, the ones who are the backbone of many good days and nights out, the ones you point and laugh at in pictures when you were teenagers, wearing hideous see-through tops with Warehouse emblazoned in diamanté across the front.
How does friendship change and evolve over the years? What would you say if you thought really hard about this? It is something that, lately, I have been forced to explore in depth. And it’s been an eye-opener. A painful, tragic, heartbreaking one, but also a beautiful, life-affirming, revelatory one that I wouldn’t change, despite the backdrop.
I am 31 and, for the past two years, I’ve had breast cancer in my life. It was diagnosed in 2009, and I had the usual combo of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Six months later, just as I felt I was on the road to recovery and ready to play at life again, the cancer unexpectedly came back and spread quickly to my lungs. Who can say what might happen in the future — look at Lance Armstrong — but my understanding is that it is now incurable and the best I can hope for is stability and that it doesn’t get any worse in the short term.
The past six months have been what I can only describe as completely surreal. I have had to take in a lot of information, fast, and make some tough decisions about further surgery and treatment options. I’m constantly having to rethink where I go next, as well as who I am as a person, according to the latest scan results. And throughout all this, I’ve had a constant band of friends at my side.
After Christmas, I decided to get all my best girls together and, thanks to the Willow Foundation, which organises “special days” for seriously ill young people (I hate that phrase, but I guess it’s true, even though I’ve never felt physically more well), nine of us decamped to Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, for a weekend of walking, eating and drinking and generally lazing about. Those who came spanned a lifetime — my best friend since we met at school, the ones I’ve worked with over the years (I’m very lucky in that I work with a lot of fabulous women), and various others from different chapters of my life. It was fun having them all there together for the first time, but also slightly weird. You know, when you’re planning a party, you’re wondering how everyone will get on? It was a bit like that. I’ve never admitted this out loud, but I didn’t want the first time they met to be at my funeral, whenever that may be. I know I’m not supposed to talk like this, and anyone who knows me knows I don’t generally, but, well, there’s always that possibility — I have to be realistic.
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We started with the same expectations for our lives: that we’d all get married some day, have kids and plod on into middle age and beyond, just like everybody else. In the past two years, there have, indeed, been marriages and babies in my little group and I have shared in that joy. But my path has been, and always will be, different now, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt a little, knowing that my illness may mean that the things we all took as given are steadily coming true for those around me, but might never happen for me.
I am painfully aware that, for the past few months, it’s been “all about me”, so I asked my friends recently what my illness meant to them. The result is I’ve now seen a side to many of them that I was never even aware of. Traditional roles have had to change — the fixers can’t fix it any more, the worriers have found strength they didn’t know they had, and the angry ones who want to kick and scream have found some level of peace, or are getting there — because it’s what I need. It’s not until you find yourself in a sticky spot that you know what you’re capable of, and that’s as true for them as it is for me. Each of them has learnt something about themselves in the way that I have. They have dug deep, faced their own fears and I am proud of them for that.
The truth is, I am scared and totally baffled. I may joke around and laugh about “Frankenboob” (the genius nickname for my reconstructed left breast — thanks, Anna), but I’ve got a cloud that follows me around every single day now. Sometimes it’s a tiny little white thing, miles and miles overhead, and some days it’s an angry black rain cloud that’s going to bucket it down on me any second and I haven’t got an umbrella.
There is no answer, no solution, and as much as we’re in this together, I’m on a path that none of my friends, as wonderful as they are, will ever experience. But on that weekend away, I learnt that when I stumble along in this surreal journey, there will always be a posse who are two steps behind me. When I scrabble around frantically for answers, they sit quietly at my side, and just feeling them there makes it all a bit better. And now I understand that’s what friendship is about. I need peace in whatever is left of my life and these girls (and boys) help me reach towards it, even on the bad days.
Like any relationship, friendships can be complex. There are misunderstandings, pain, confusion, and they take effort and work to maintain. And they don’t stay the same. The relationships I have with my posse — codenamed Team Woodstock — are changing all the time as I see what me being ill is doing to them. But what I’ve come to understand is that when everything else is stripped away, friendship is love, in its purest form. And when you love someone, you take everything that comes along. So this is a heartfelt tribute to them, their strength and their constant support. I am a different person today, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I could never be this person without their humour and compassion.
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Team Woodstock
Laura
Fran being ill has bonded us in a way I never expected. Just before she was diagnosed again, my 11-day-old baby died. While I can never understand what it must be like to live with cancer, I do understand the impact of a trauma. I understand what it’s like to be avoided by people in the street because they don’t know what to say. I understand about being the elephant in the room. Fran and I share this. We’ve developed a frank openness with each other that can’t be rivalled, and her strength has given me strength.
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Anna
After the initial blow and lots of tears, I decided that the way I was going to cope with my best friend having cancer was to take every day one at a time. I don’t want to spend the rest of what time we have together feeling sad and mourning her as if she is already dead, that wouldn’t do her justice. I am going to try to make her laugh if I can, and hug her when she needs it.
Liz
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Tim and I got married in December and Fran was such an important part of our wedding day. She had been part of our relationship from day one and was partly responsible for us getting together. As with any wedding, emotions were running high, and yes, there were lots of tears, probably more so because I had Fran by my side. It was so important to have her at the centre of our day.
Bek
Fran knows me well enough to know that talking feelings and emotions isn’t my favourite thing. I hadn’t had any experience of cancer before she was diagnosed, I had thought it was all pretty clear cut — you got cancer, had treatment and you either got better or you died. It was just a physical illness and you beat it, or it beat you. Fran has made me realise how life isn’t quite as black and white as I think I wanted it to be. The complexity and uncertainty of Fran having cancer has shown me that it’s not just physical, it’s psychological, emotional and social, and changes your entire outlook on yourself, your friends, family and life as you knew it.