Gaggle Therapy

I recently started my maintenance dose of chemotherapy - high dose drugs for five days each month. So far it's going okay. The best thing was that I started another therapy around the same time.

Three of my good friends from high school came to visit with me this weekend. One is here for a week, two came for a few days, and while we always want it to be longer, it has been a wonderful time!

There is actually a group of five of us - I usually refer to us as the "gaggle". We hung out together in high school and sang in the choir and danced in Cloggers West and thought we would all get married to the cute boys we had crushes on and live around the block from each other forever and all that great stuff. As is typical, though, we all grew up and drifted wherever our lives took us. (I did marry the cute boy that I had a crush on, though!) We are spread out from Oregon to California to Utah to Texas.

Our last "gaggle" reunion actually took place nearly five years ago. We all had babies in 2001. For me, it was my first. For others, it was their last (or near to the last). But we all happened to be visiting in Utah during Thanksgiving weekend, and we met up for dinner with our babies in tow, and it was really fun. Since then we had our 20-year high school reunion, but I don't think the five of us were all together at that time. But meanwhile, our friendships have endured the test of time.

Cancer has infiltrated the gaggle twice. One of our friends was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago, and I drew the black bean for brain cancer. Twenty-plus years after playing and singing and gossiping together, we are now realizing how precious life is, and we are supporting each other as best as we can. Cancer is a lousy excuse for a spontaneous reunion, but I was glad that we had one! Only four of the five were together this time, but hopefully we'll catch up somehow. It was a really fun time. We giggled through the pages of our yearbooks, we put on our clogging shoes and danced, we sang karaoke, we ate great Tex-Mex food and toured Dallas (I'm hoping to recruit future Texans), they came and heard me rehearse Messiah, and we just had an all-around great time. Friends that are still friends after graduation and college and husbands and kids and careers and moves and life crises and all that stuff. Throw us back together and we're transported back in time...to the good times! Add my bestest friend from high school, aka my high school crush, aka my husband, Jared, and we were all twenty years younger - regardless of what state our bodies might be in!

This is a time of my life where I have enjoyed visits from both family and friends, and it always does me a world of good. It reminds me of how wonderful my life has been, and how wonderful it continues to be. I am blessed in many ways.