Angels

The internet has been responsible for some terrible things; grooming, trolling, cyber bullying and those horribly irritating gaming videos on YouTube that the children are obsessed by, but it also has the miraculous ability to bring together people who would never normally have met, but who go on to change each other's lives.

Just over a year ago I received an e-mail from a lady called Elizabeth. She wrote this:

....I'm drinking a bottle of 12.5% red wine a night and would love to be one of those 'normal' one glass with dinner people, but I'm an all or nothing girl. When I smoked, I smoked 30 a day. Now I haven't touched a cigarette for 11 years but I have another crutch in red wine. I will stop one day and I read your blog every day. So please don't stop blogging because one day will be day one of never again....

I wrote back to Elizabeth, telling her that she sounded exactly like me, and that she'd never regret quitting once she decided that the time was right.

Then, just ten days later, I found The Lump in my left boob. In a bid to try to calm my terror, I wrote about it (see my post: I Need Help). That night I was lying in bed, unable to sleep and I found this e-mail from Elizabeth:

...I have just read today's blog and I really feel for you. I know exactly what you're going through. I found a lump when I was 42 (16 years ago) and it turned out to be cancer....

....what I can tell you is that the waiting is far worse than anything you have to come. The not knowing, the terrifying scenarios that play in your head every single second of the day far out-terrify the outcome...

....I am just one of so very many people thinking of you because you have done so much for so many. if anyone deserves good luck it is you.

I remembered those words over the next few weeks and, you know what? She was absolutely right: the waiting is always the worst.

When it turned out that I wasn't one of the lucky ones, Elizabeth mailed me again, telling me her story in detail, reassuring me that it would all be okay, and ending with these lines: Keep dreaming your dreams because there is a future for you and your lovely family and this is just a blip in that wonderful future.

When I posted from the depths of despair I found a message saying I don't know what to say, because whatever I say won't help while you are in this horrible fog of doubt. All I can tell you is the truth. You are going to be fine. I know this because (a) I've been there and (b) I'm a nurse :-)

Once or twice over those initial weeks I found myself on cancer sites and forums. Within minutes I'd be convinced I was going to die. So I stopped Googling. Instead, almost every day, I'd read one of Elizabeth's wonderful mails. It felt like she was holding my hand across the interweb.

Then, on 30th October last year I said farewell to a chunk of my left boob, and Elizabeth sent me this:

...we find the people we are meant to find, and, as a result, come Friday when you lose a bit of boob I'm going to give up my wine habit....It seems like as good a day as any to rid myself of a bad habit while you rid yourself of bad cells.

Elizabeth and I have mailed each other regularly over the last year, and then a couple of days ago this dropped into my inbox:

I can't believe that it is one year tomorrow that both our lives changed. Had I not pledged to quit drinking on the day of your surgery, I may have slid off the wagon in those early days, but you had been so supportive I couldn't even contemplate failure...

I replied that the support I had given Elizabeth was nothing compared to what she did for me.

The truth is that angels come in all forms, and some of them are wifi enabled and have addiction issues :-)

CONGRATULATIONS, Elizabeth my friend, on one year sober. You are my angel.

Tomorrow I have my check up at the cancer clinic. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. (Unless you're a surgeon on duty - that would be dangerous).

I'm going with a lovely friend (another angel who has dropped everything so that she can hold my hand) and have booked a table for lunch at the ferociously trendy Chiltern Firehouse afterwards.

If I'm going down, I might as well go down in flames....

SM x