Hanging Out with My Peeps

If I take a look backward, I realize that I have the best time hanging out with my cancer friends, or 'my peeps'. Sometimes I feel like I hold back on my health with everyone and more so with people who don't have cancer - a/k/a the people who don't really get it. I mean they try.

I have many friends with varying understanding of what its like to live with cancer. One friend, who has RA and has lost a husband to cancer, is very, very close to understanding the life I live. Then I also have friends who barely know what fibromyalgia is.

Part of it is me. I tend to not be very open about my medical stuff until I am ready to talk about it. The first person I tell is my husband when it comes to medical crap. Then I start telling my family and my cancer friends. My family comes next because they are my family. Then my cancer friends get it.

Every week I go to my knitting group at a cancer support center. We all have cancer in varying states of treatment and health status. We have not known each other too long. Sometimes it takes a week or two for people to open up about their cancer. But we sit there and laugh about life.  We really have a lot of fun. And there is always a little sigh when our time comes to an end and we head our different ways.

I also find that I spend most of time with other friends with cancer. First of all, they are most like to be retired like me and have time during the day (I don't go out at night). Second, we can all relate to our health issues.

So I like hanging out with my peeps and having fun. No offense to everyone else but they are my peeps.