Boob Cooties: When Your Friend Has Breast Cancer

I know I'm fortunate. I've had distant friends - old classmates, acquaintances - battle breast cancer. No one in my close family has had to battle this ugly disease. Fellow AC Contributor Linda StCyr has a great slogan in her spreadshirt shop - "F@ck Cancer". My small corner of the world hasn't been devastated by breast cancer.

Until a few months ago.

Boocki and I have been friends for years. We don't see each other often, don't talk often enough but when we do, it's like it was yesterday. Just a quick catch-up and we descend into the way it always was - talking about our kids and life in general. We've laughed together and cried together. We've consoled each other through breakups and financial devastation. We've raised many glasses together to forgive or forget.

And I learned via Facebook a few months ago that she was fighting breast cancer and had been in the battle for more than six months.

I was stunned. I cried. I couldn't understand why she didn't let me know. I wanted to go to her, just jump in my no-water-pump car and drive to her house 45 minutes away and bang on the door and say "Why didn't you tell me? What can I do?" I picked up the phone to call her.

Then I put the phone down before it would ring through.

Over the last few months, I've started e-mails and deleted them without sending. I've formulated conversations in my mind. I could not believe Boocki had chosen to go through breast cancer without me. I was a little hurt. I was saddened that our friendship had drifted to the point that she felt she couldn't call me to hold her head while she vomited from the chemotherapy and radiation.

I should have been with her when she cut her long, thick, beautiful hair into four ponytails for Locks of Love. I should have cooked the Italian sauce she taught me to make, filled with three-meat meatballs and chunks of pork to give her some badly-needed nutrition and fat to battle the weight loss her body didn't need. I should have been scrubbing her toilets while she was laying on the floor from exhaustion.

We talked on the phone this morning for almost two hours. And we laughed and we cried.

While we were talking, I knew even before she told me why she didn't call me. Boocki didn't call me when she learned she had breast cancer for the same reason I didn't tell anyone when I had my breast cancer scare two years ago.

"It's not fair to put this on anyone else."

We such big, tough girls. We raised our kids on our own, lived through financial ruin and kept on plugging along. We decided together where we would meet if we ever had to disappear quickly and knew what our new identities would be. We've had our hearts broken and helped each other patch those wounds. We're happy - how could I possibly intrude on her happiness just because I have boob cooties?

I love that phrase - boob cooties.

Boocki and I have created catch-phrases for a lot of the difficult times we've gone through in our lives. It's our way of putting it into perspective and taking the power away from that which would try to hurt us. Some of them are kind of silly, but I personally think "former business partner who will burn in hell" was very fitting. It was Boocki who introduced me to "The Committee" and brought my spirituality to the path I follow today.

Breast cancer sucks. Part of the battle against breast cancer is putting it in its place, taking away its power. I've known people who have put breast cancer in its place for years through whatever worked for them - the power of prayer, yoga, meditation or just screaming at the top of their lungs "F&CK YOU BREAST CANCER. You will NOT beat me."

Taking that big, bad word "cancer" out of the equation gives you boob cooties. Cooties are a formidable foe, but not unbeatable. Cooties are worth battling in every form they take - and cooties aren't such a big, bad monster. Cooties are manageable.

Cooties are beatable.