Rocking the Pink by Laura Roppé Page A

large. Was there anybody out there? I felt an undeniable urge to connect with someone else going through exactly what I was experiencing.
    â€œI was recently diagnosed with TNBC,” I wrote, tears welling up in my eyes. “I will start chemo soon.” I paused. What did I really want to say? “I’m scared,” I continued. And it was the truth. “Is there anyone out there? I need a friend.”
    With a heavy sigh, I wiped the tears for one last time, turned off the computer, and flopped into the warm bed next to Brad, who was already fast asleep.
    The next morning, I awoke to find a reply message in my inbox.
It was from Jane, a recently diagnosed, forty-year-old woman from Sheffield, England.
    â€œI’m scared, too,” Jane wrote. “I’ll be your friend, if you’ll be mine.”
    Eureka!
    I immediately sent Jane an email telling her how excited I was to have found her. She happened to be online at that very moment, and replied right back. A lengthy, giddy email exchange between us ensued, during which we discovered that Jane and I were both scheduled to undergo our first chemotherapy infusions on the exact same day, a few weeks later. We agreed to be each other’s TNBC buddies.
    â€œI feel like I have had a bit of a weight lifted from my shoulders, just knowing you are there,” Jane wrote. “I am really thrilled that you want to take this journey with me and I look forward to us ‘holding hands’ across the pond as we both take our first trepidatious steps into chemo and beyond.”
    â€œYou have made a big difference for me, too,” I replied. “Thank you for holding my hand. I am squeezing it right now.”
    Over the next few weeks, Jane and I prepared ourselves for chemo. Even though we were embarking on our respective battles on separate continents, it felt like we were arm in arm. In a flurry of emails, we compared the different chemo drugs our oncologists had recommended, traded practical tips we’d read about how to combat chemo side effects, and sent each other links to websites that donated head scarves and hats. We divulged personal-ad-type details about ourselves: “I love reading, listening to music, socialising, and being with my family—however much they drive me nuts,” Jane wrote. In
response to my descriptions of Brad and the girls, Jane wrote to me about her husband, Adam, and two-year-old daughter, Natasha.
    We gave each other pep talks. Jane cheered me on: “You must not let this bloody disease ruin your dreams! It may feel like it is in control of you but you can be in control of it!”
    And I replied, “I am one hundred percent here for you, squeezing your hand, sending you positive vibes. You can do this. The cancer won’t know what hit it!”
    We vented and complained about things we couldn’t reveal to anyone else, lest we cause worry or offense. Jane wrote, “I had a bit of a wobble the other day. I couldn’t stop crying and crying.”
    For my part, I bristled against “staying positive” all the time, the universally accepted mantra for defeating cancer: “I am told 10,000 times a day to ‘stay positive.’ Yes, of course. But I was not ‘positive’ 24/7 before cancer, and I’m not going to be positive 24/7 after cancer. I believe completely in a positive attitude, no doubt. But I was already a positive person. And I got cancer.”
    Jane agreed and suggested we get matching T-shirts bearing the slogan STAY POSITIVE, with two thumbs up. We just understood each other.
    I lamented Brad’s suffering: “How is your husband? I have seen mine cry more in the past week than in the twenty-three years I’ve known him. It’s devastating. He keeps saying he wishes he could do it for me. . . . ” To which Jane replied that, strangely enough, her husband hadn’t cried at all. I chalked it up to Adam’s (very)