Sisterhood of the Ya-Ya traveling steel magnolias

The last couple days have really been bittersweet. Friends from work surprised Reenie with a visit, they were fully equipped with a Christmas tree complete with pink ornaments, lights, garland and a breast cancer tree skirt, how cool. Reenie has had less pain this week even though she has needed Nupragen shots each day because her white count is still very low. Reen finisher her first cycle of chemo-therapy (3) doses this past Monday, one down and five cycles to go, pretty much five more months. The hair is gone though and we have two very different views I still believes she is as cute as ever and she thinks she looks like the picture on the Gierczyk real estate ad. The amazing thing about the lose of hair was the process that Reenie decided to undertake with its removal. Instead of waiting and watching the progression of hair lose each day with every brush stroke she took the inevitable head-on but not by herself. As you probably have surmised by previous postings Reenie's friends and family are her support group,her medicine and her traveling companions on this journey. The hair was going to come off and her circle of friends were to play a part. In a short 24 hour period with Reenie feeling pretty good she arranged to have as many friends as she could gather (or our house could hold) more than 20 women became part of the hair removal process. I was not sure this was a good idea for anyone, but I knew Reenie needed her medicine (her friends), and this might help her. What I didn't expect was how this helped everyone else. The shock of seeing your friend or loved one without hair for the first time, what do you say?, how do you react?, well Reenie was going to help us through that situation. I will get back to the process in a minute, the friends that came together Thursday night were girl friends from childhood that she has known for 40 plus years friends from the neighborhood she had known for as little as a year, some out of town call-ins and young women that are our friends children and friends of Reenie's girls, colleagues from work, women that have experienced sickness or have sickness in their families what a collection of beautiful people, we are blessed to know them. OK back to the process, again I wasn't sure this was going to be good, but it was therapeutic for all. Each of Reenie's circle came up took a piece of hair, started to braid it and told a story or joke or experience that they have ad with our warrior. Once the braid was complete and a ribbon was tied to each end they cut the braid and kept it as a keepsake. The stories and sentiments were what we all needed, we heard about the Reenie face, the Reenieisms, her issues with packing a suitcase, her ability to have a stuffed animal or crappy craft for all occasions, how the husbands of friends would do anything for her, her addiction to McDonald's diet coke, how those that work or have worked with her become lifelong friends, and how she is always in mom mode taking care of those around her. When the stories were done and the braids cut Shannon completed the job showing strength by shaving the last of her mom's hair quite a chore. This helped Reenie but like I said earlier it helped her circle. The strength that Reenie has is the strength from her friends, it takes courage to cut your friends hair as she is going through chemo, courage to find time in each day to call and check-in, courage to pray and believe that we can and will get through this, Reenie's friends that is her real medicine. I will take many things from last Thursday night, but one thing that I keep thinking of is what Kristen and Megan each brought up when taking about Reenie was the friendships that these young women are witnessing, not saying so but they are learning from you, all of Reenie's friends old and new, how to grow up and how to love, and take care of each other,thank you. Well that night you cried, you laughed and you shared and you helped Reenie through a tough time and she helped us through a tough time....at the end of the day we all were able to laugh...check out the slide show at the bottom of blog...it was a good night!!