An Ode to Cancer Besties

You know what sucks? Having cancer. You know what sucks even more? Having cancer during a global pandemic. Although now that I’ve returned to the cancer centre post COVID I am deeply grateful to have had peak pandemic, pre-vaccine cancer because I don’t think I could’ve handled the extreme loudness of the waiting rooms now. Waiting to get your blood taken to be cleared for chemo only to find there are no seats because half of them are taken up by loud caregivers not wearing masks coughing all over the place and watching videos on their phones at top volume. My question for anyone who does this in public — why? Why why why why do you insist on watching your shows / videos / movies on your tiny screen at insanely high decibels without headphones? Perhaps notice there are other people in your direct vicinity. In the cancer centre instances, all of whom are insanely vulnerable. Looking at the bald, beanie wearing current cancer fighters navigating these full chairs being the only ones with masks on fills me with a quiet rage. How are they the only ones preserving their immune system? The lack of awareness (or perhaps care for the community around them) boggles my mind and in the end… makes me glad to have had my cancer at an all-time inconvenient time.

This is all to say cancer sucks. But cancer besties? Cancer besties are the best.

When I was diagnosed in late February 2021 and wrote my “hey, so you think 2020 was bad? Wellll do we have some news for you?!” post I got a lot of support. I mean A LOT. All the support. From people currently in my life, to people who knew me lifetimes ago, to the occasional stranger who felt the need to cheer me on. But one of the messages I got was from Lisa.

Lisa and I are both massive procrastinators. We met in university (1 of 100 kids in the first year of our program) and it was always Lisa who I was messaging in the middle of the night the day before an essay or a design project was due on MSN messenger (was that the instant message program popular from 2004-2007? Maybe the early days of Google chat? I know it was post ICQ…) Regardless, it was her and I in our respective parents’ basements in Mississauga messaging at 2:30/3AM “hey are you done yet?” one of us would type to which the other was likely to respond “LOL… no”. Writing has always come easily to me, I know, I know, but it has. So there were many nights I was starting an essay when my peers were shutting their laptops. And I could always count on middle of the night Lisa. We’d smile and laugh and nod knowingly the next day if we were in the same class that we sure are a couple of idiots postponing our work until the last possible moment. But somehow, we always came out on top. As in, we managed to complete the task.

I can’t remember exactly when it came. Whether it was a minute, an hour, or a day, after that “surprise world… I have cancer… at 36” post, but in came the message from my Lisa “me, too. I was diagnosed in November.” First, came shock. Then, came “holy shit, how are you dealing with this by yourself?” when I realized I hadn’t seen anything on social. Lisa didn’t tell anyone she was facing triple negative breast cancer. But she told me. And one of the things I am most glad about for sharing my story is that it helped her feel less alone. The point was and has always been, to help people feel less alone. But damn, I am so so so glad it made Lisa feel less alone.

From there on out, we were cancer buddies. We could message at any time about any thing and we would always get it. “My water tastes like metal today.” “I’m waiting for my oncologist and I’ve been sitting here for two hours.” “Do you ever just feel like you can’t wait for the day to end so you can go back to sleep?” “Have you had to take Neulasta? This thing is horrifying. You can FEEL your bones!”

Lisa’s chemo was bi-weekly. And she had eight rounds. Followed by a lumpectomy and radiation. My measly Aggressive Non-Hodgkins with it’s six rounds of chemo once every three weeks pales in comparison. Not that there’s any good cancer, believe me. But when I think of how difficult it was in the thick of it… When your hair is falling out. When you’re neutropenic and running a 104º fever wondering if you should put your immune system-less self into the ER in the middle of COVID or take your chances at home, I can’t imagine having treatment extend as long as Lisa’s and I’ve many times said “my friend Lisa went through cancer at the same time as me, but hers was way worse”. It just, is. It’s harder. It has more variables. And she was exhausted for a long, long, long time after chemo subsided. While it took well over a year for my fingers to have any feeling and to easily open a chip bag (still not the same as pre-cancer) it took Lisa just as long to feel like a human being again. To not feel so. damn. tired.

And that’s where I am so glad we have each other. Not to compare and contrast. But to relate and understand. When you navigate the waters of survival (which BTW is a life-long-thing), when the scanxiety comes, when the fear comes that it’s going to get you again, when you know tomorrow isn’t promised, your cancer buddy is always, always there.

Chemo was rough. Horrible. Something I really wouldn’t wish on anyone. And damn, do I wish Lisa didn’t know what it was like. Or Tab. Or anyone. Fuck though, am I ever grateful to have Lisa to navigate these impossibly choppy waters. The sure, I’m fine now buts.…

When we were sick, we watched a lot of RuPaul’s Drag Race. One of my fondest memories is watching an episode with my dad (born in 1944) and explaining what a drag queen was and sitting and enjoying it together. And then telling Lisa “my dad watched Drag Race with me.” Drag Race brought us both so much joy because, well, ask any lover of drag and they’ll tell you the same. It’s love. It’s joy. It’s hope. Personified.

Sometimes, when we were sick, we started talking about what we’d do when we weren’t sick anymore. One of those things was to go back to Crews and Tangos (a.k.a. the famous Toronto drag bar where yes … I once saw Brooklyn Heights perform a millennia ago. Shoutout to Brooklyn Heights. Her “Sorry Not Sorry” by Demi Lovato vs. Yvie Oddly on Drag Race is STILL the lip sync to beat IMHO). We’d talk about how when we weren’t sick anymore we’d pretend we were 20-something again and go to Crews and Tangos and shut the place down.

Eventually, we got better, first Lisa, then me. And over the last 2 1/2 years the world turned and life continued. 2022 for me was very much trying to figure out how to be a person again. And it was depressing and lonely and sad and difficult. Through it all I texted Lisa, and we talked about how weird and hard being alive after was. How emotionally, maybe it was … worse. But she’s downtown Toronto and I’m in Hamilton (navigating my busier-each-year design business and my busier-each-year twins) so we haven’t gotten together as much as we’d like. A lunch here, a quick hug there, and the dream of Crews and Tangos started to fade because let’s be real, we don’t want to be out until 2AM. We’re not 20-something. And frankly, we’re tired.

But then… The Drake Hotel blessed upon us… Drag Brunch. It’s during the day, so it’s before we want to be in our pyjamas for the night.

Miss Moço killing it at Drag Brunch. One of many moments post cancer when you come close to tears… you’re both still here.

The moral of this whole rambling is this: today we sat together for two hours and watched Miss Moço and Makayla Couture kill it for two hours. We laughed. We sang along. We beamed. Lisa got there before me, so she didn’t tell the whole story when Miss Moço walked around and asked her if she was celebrating something. Eventually she told her “my birthday”. What she didn’t tell her was she just celebrated her 40th birthday. And she is radiant. And stunning. And glorious. And perfect. She didn’t tell her we dreamed about this moment during chemo. When we had no hair or eye lashes or eyebrows. When the people around us wanted to be positive and hopeful, but we were secretly texting each other the realness of the situation. The “holy shit, we could dies”. And we didn’t. But she’s the only one I can make my “well we didn’t die… yet” jokes to. The only one who gets it. Who knows tomorrow isn’t promised.

And it’s in these moments that I thank cancer. I thank cancer for bringing Lisa and I closer together. I thank cancer for letting me truly take a snap shot in a room full of strangers who clapped for us when I told Miss Moco we talked about this during chemo. It’s her 40th and we’re both cancer survivors. I thank cancer because I am THERE. In those moments WE are there. Neither of us is thinking about what’s coming next that day. We are enjoying every single second of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” While a talented queen does her thing. Splits. Handstands. Cartwheels. Met with claps, cheers and tips. While a room full of strangers cheer her on. Where for two hours we are all smiling. Together. Happy. Joyful. Celebrating. Celebrating how fucking lucky we are to be alive. Celebrating how beautiful it is to see some kids in the room. Celebrating the next generation of people growing up in this fucked up, backwards, upside down world. One where Lisa and I got to survive. Where science kept us alive a little longer. Where we can sing at the top of our fucking lungs and not care what another person thinks. Where we can be liberated from the living. To know the almost not.

And to have a truth like that. A person like that. A heart like that. An understanding like that. It’s grace. It’s contentment. It’s bliss.

It’s a hell of a club we’re in. A club we didn’t want to be a part of. But it opens your heart. It breaks it wide open. And it leaves nothing left. To say I am proud of her is an understatement. I hated my Neulasta shots. I thought I could do them myself, but I couldn’t. Willis had to because I would break into a sweat. Unlike my journey, Lisa’s was a total shock. She found a little bump and figured it was nothing. She hadn’t been unwell. She was just a regular 36-year-old woman wandering the world and then… it was something. And everything crashed. Disbelief. Shock. All of the things. I don’t know what that’s like and I’m grateful not to. I can’t imagine the shock. The trust that must be lost in those moments. My diagnosis filled me with relief. Lisa’s diagnosis filled her with dread. But still, she made it. She pushed through. She’s here.

Today in the car, Lisa told me she cut off her own hair because she’d read it was easier to start to lose it if it was shorter. Less of a shock to the system. And she lost it, over weeks, in clumps. One day her mom, who was helping her out, left. And because she knew it would be too much for her mom, she waited for her to go home and then — Lisa took her brother’s electric shaver and stripped it all away. She gave herself her own Neulasta shots. She walked herself to chemo. She wore a baseball cap with a built-in pony so she didn’t have to talk about it when it was happening. So no one needed to know. And somehow, she did it. She made it to the other side.

She is strong. Capable. Amazing. She is 40 years of dealing with shit and swatting it away. She travels the world (and looks fabulous doing it). And she is — and will forever be — my cancer bestie. There’s nothing either of us could either say or do to alter the horror we walked through, together and separately. She will always get it. She will never expect positivity when mine has flown away for a brief moment. She will never expect me to ever be, truly, okay.

She was one of the last ones to leave my “Yay I didn’t die party!” And she’ll be at my 40th. And my next “yay I didn’t die party” and all the big celebrations to come. And every time I see her, my eyes will light up because I am so glad she is still here. And so glad to call her friend.

In the end, today, we talked about hair. About how everyone loves the shorter hair on both of us. “Are you going to keep it that way?” “It looks so good.” But we both have the same plan. We’re growing that shit. We’re growing it until it becomes ours again. Hers words were poignant and perfect. “I’d like it to be my decision to have my hair short. Not because cancer took it and then it grew back. I’d like it to be my choice.” Same girl, same. Always. Same.

And how cool. That after all that. And all this. We can say “I hear you.” And really, really, really, really, really — mean it.

So whatever continent you’re reading this on, raise a glass to Lisa. Wish her the happiest birthday. Lisa, where you’re quiet, I will always be loud. We don’t know anyone in this room. Yes, you made it to 40! Yes, you’re a cancer survivor! Yes, you should be celebrated! And yes. We will always be in it together.