It IS October, after all.

Last week at work, I found myself hunting for a contact at a particular hospital. I needed to find an I.T. contact to work with for a change being made in our system to correct a problem this hospital was having interfacing with ours. We just needed to do some tests. The woman I had been working with the week before (the lab manager) was out of town. She mentioned the name of this other gal who turned out to be the honest to goodness I.T. person I needed.

I will call her Sandy. When I reached Sandy the first day she sounded like one of those 'tell me what you need and I'll get 'er done' kind of people, she understood what I was looking for and went ahead and produced it for me. I thanked her and hoped I wouldn't need to track her down again, she was very very busy.

A day later though, I got an email asking for something else from Sandy so I called her again. This time I got her voicemail saying she was working from home that day. I didn't want to push her, I mean, who knows why she was working from home that day? So I left her a message explaining what I was looking for and asking her to call me back when she could.

Late in the day I got a call and it was Sandy. She apologized to me, called me Angel, said she was so sorry it took her so long to get back to me but .. *sigh* .. she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had had a bad night the night before because of her chemo. And she was apologizing to ME! Such a sweetheart of a lady. She once again produced what I needed and I thanked her profusely, hoping she would start to feel better soon. Lame. Lame I tell ya!

This lady was not a regular client I talk to all the time. I only talked to her for the first time last week. And I really don't need to talk to her again, at least until something else comes up - and any one of a number of people other than me may handle that issue. So I may never talk to her again. But I want to call her again. I want to ask her if she uses the internet, if she has come across the many "families" of breast cancer survivors, fighters, and their loved ones all over the internet. People who put themselves out there to tell their stories to help others who may end up in that place.

I don't know her. But, I think I'm going to call her back anyway. Please - I know you have links I can give to her, resources for information and for strength and camaraderie and commiseration. Please share them with me, so I can share them with her.

Thanks!