So in a continuation of yesterday's "good day" status, I started my "Farewell Tour".  It's not that I plan on dying or never seeing people again, it more like a rock star's farewell tour when they "retire" and they are back again a month later.  Since it is a good idea for me to sequester myself during my chemo treatment, I went around to some friends yesterday checking in.  It was good.  There were many people I hadn't seen since before my surgery.  In fact, yesterday was the first day I had driven by myself in three weeks!  And as far as I know, I didn't run over anyone.

A friend of mine lost his wife to cancer about a decade ago.  During her battles she became a very strong advocate for the mental welfare of all those affected by cancer.  She worked so tirelessly at this she has a facility named in her honor at the Wellness Community.  My friend, her husband, urged me to give it a try.  For the past few weeks I had planned to go to one of the meetings, and never actually made it to one.  My wife said she would go with me.  I said, I didn't need her to go, but she was welcome to come.  She would never say she wanted to come, but she wouldn't exactly let me go by myself.  So we head over last night for the Newcomers meeting.  I don't even know why I am going or what I expect to get out of it.  All I know is my friend who lost his wife said it would help us to go.  The creator of NoBoobsAboutIt.com, who has also been very supportive and helpful, urged me that those things would be beneficial to us as well.

Since I have never been to one of these I am basically expecting all of us to sit around in a circle in a very sterile looking room and go around one by one like a 12-step program.  "Hi, I'm Tom and I got my nut cut off three weeks ago."  Everyone in a monotone voice, "Hi, Tom".  But, that isn't what it was like at all.  It was a very nice room, with very cushy chairs and back pillows that make it impossible to sit up straight.  We just randomly pick two chairs and realize we are sitting underneath a painting that my friend had painted of his dearly departed wife.  That was almost too much for me.  It was like my friend's wife was looking over us, guiding us.  The meeting starts. Only one other couple shows up so we are motioned to the couch, which is also a little difficult to find a comfortable position.  The therapist, who assures us he is not acting as a therapist for the purposes of this meeting, goes over the programs at the facility and we take a tour.  We come back to our little circle and someone mentions how some people view a connection between the emotional state and where your cancer happens.  As an example she talks about one person who said they felt like their marriage "strangling" her and turned out she had tumors on either side of her neck.  In the room are a testicular cancer patient, a breast cancer patient, and two colon cancer survivors.  I don't hear much of the rest of what she was saying, because I am using that theory to try to figure out who is causing us a pain in the ass, balls, and boobs.  I would explore this theory in more depth later on the way home and how best to avoid cancer to my remaining gentleman's bits, with my wife rejecting each suggested "treatment" I came up with.  I guess she just doesn't care about medical research.

Back to the meeting, we later break out for a one on one meeting with the currently non-therapying therapist.  I sit down at a big table in another uncomfortable chair.  What is it with this place?  Then I realize, I may not be the chair, it may be the giant gash at my waistline that is keeping me from getting comfortable.  I try some reclining Tai-Chi and yoga so I can get into a position where I can focus on what he's saying.  He asked how I heard of the place, and I mention a nurse told us to go as well as my friend and I say my friend's name.  He looks at me with a blank stare and admits he doesn't know who that is.  During the tour, I noticed that my friend and/or his wife's name is literally on just about every wall in the place.  I explain that my friend is the guy mentioned there, and there, and there, and he painted that, and that, and his wife is mentioned there, and there, and there...OK, I didn't say it quite like that, but I did point out his relationship to the building's name.  The therapist is very surprised and asked me to tell him that he said hello even though he knows he won't know who he is but he wants me to tell him he says hello anyway.  That moment almost made me bust out laughing. Although, my friend is very supportive to those with cancer and supports the mission in every way he can, I don't think he has any power whatsoever on the daily hirings and firings of the facility.  We start talking about what we will get out of the official group meetings.  I mention that I feel like as a Stage I guy, I am afraid the Stage IV people will look down on my and try to beat me up at lunch.  He assures me they won't, but I am still a little afraid, although watching a bunch of chemo patients rumble would probably be the least exciting fight ever.  He sees my "It's all fun and games until someone loses a nut" shirt (yes I found one!) and he says that is a good attitude to have.  I tell him about some of the other shirts I have been wearing lately, including the one that looks like a pack of Camel cigarettes except in the place of "Camel" is "Cancer" with "Genuine Fate" replacing "Genuine Taste".  He laughs, and quickly stops and gets in to therapist mode even though he isn't a therapist at this point in time.  He explains that although he is not allowed to give advice, he would really appreciate it if I would not wear that particular shirt to the facility, as not all the participants would appreciate that type of humor.  We schedule me into a group and I have my wife come in.

She comes out of her meeting and it looks like she has been crying.  Part of me is glad, I feel like she has been bottling in a lot of this stuff, so I am thankful that the non-therapying therapist was able to let her get that off her chest.  Another part of me feels like my heart is ripped out, because more than likely I am the reason for those tears.  Another reason that if I ever find cancer's ass, I am going to kick it.  I restrain myself from kicking to two colon cancer people.  After all they are colon cancer survivors, so they don't possess cancer's ass anymore, no sense in kicking them.  She comes out and the anti-therapist apologizes for taking so long to my cancer support babysitter, something he also did for me.  I wonder if he were an actually therapizing if he would have tapped his watch and said "session's up"?  I don't care, I feel a little better.  And my wife seems to feel really good about her meeting and her scheduled group too.  We weren't real sure why we were going, but we both seem really glad we went.

We celebrate with a night of fine dining at what a friend calls the WC Steakhouse.  No, sliders, just chicken rings and cheese sticks.  Yes, its a big bag of crappy, greasy goodness, but after today, White Castle never tasted so good.  I don't know what to expect at my first cancer patient's meeting tomorrow, I just know I am going and I can't wear a certain shirt.
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And one footnote.  Since I have been e-mailing back and forth to my NoBoobsAboutIt.com buddy, I have always been going to her site from our correspondences.  I went to Yahoo search it to make sure I put her site name on here correctly.  Instead of a breast cancer site being amongst the results I saw Boobs for Troops.  Yes it is exactly what it sounds like.  My wife asked if they were covered or uncovered, and I told her some were wearing red, white, and blue pasties.  At least our troops know what they are fighting for!  God Bless America!!!