My Awesome Best Friend Liz

Liz and I go WAAYYYYY back. Don't even ask, or we'll never stop talking about it! She's my best friend from back in the growing up days.... and we're still close though she lives all the way up in Utah and we don't see each other very often. Paul can always tell when I'm on the phone with her because my voice goes up about 8 octaves, and I'm laughing milk out my nose.

Well, Liz recently was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and subsequently had her entire thyroid surgically removed, and some of the lymph nodes around it as well. She also had to do a radioactive iodine treatment where she was separated from her hubby and little daughter for a week (while she was glowing radioactive). Needless to say, she gets the Cancer thing. She saw my blog about my Mom and called me (as did many other close friends whom I love and appreciate more than words can say) to see how I, and the rest of my family were doing. She's always so thoughtful. Well, she's also sneaky. She called asking weird questions, like what my address was....(who uses snail mail these days?!?!) and how many grandkids my mom had. Anyway, Fedex came today and left a package on my doorstep. Today was a hard day. Some of us went with my mom to her first appointment with the oncologist today and we left with a lot of unanswered questions. These were questions we've been waiting for answers to since the diagnosis 3 weeks ago. It was frustrating, and it's also very difficult to have to rummage up all those feelings again, the fear, the anger, the frustration, the grief and the soul crushing pain! Ugh. It's a lot. Anyway, I came home from that, and here's this package from Liz, with a separate touching card each for my mom and I. I took it over to my mom's house as soon as my kids snarfed their pizza down. It was very touching, and we both shed some tears of gratitude for Liz's wonderful gift and tender heart, and for the many many other kindnesses that have been shown to us. In a funny book we found for my mom to read ("I'd Rather Do Chemo than Clean out the Garage") the author says she was so amazed when she was diagnosed with cancer by how many people came to give her support, show her love, care for her etc. that she felt like "everyone should get hit by a truck at least once in their life to see how many people care about them." Anyway, thank you Liz for the 54 (PERFECTLY ENOUGH for everyone in our family!!!!! You are AWESOME!) Livestrong bracelets, Tevia for the flowers and babysitting, the many people in my ward who have offered their help (and I'm not the one with cancer!!!) and my close friends who are there for me when I need to gripe, complain and cry! Love you all! So, out of towner Bowlers -- I'll send along your bracelets as soon as I can find enough stamps! I think it'd be cool to see a picture of each family sporting theirs! I'm sure Mom (and Liz!) would love to see that!