My lovely ex boss..

[Carla]

had a masectomy a few weeks ago, and I've only just managed to have the courage to ring her. Does it make sense, to not want to call someone, cos she's probably spoken to a hundred people about it before, and I don't want to bombard her with me saying 'How's it going'?

She's so upbeat, starts her chemo on Thursday. I have absolutely no experience of BC before now. She knows she'll lose her hair, and jokingly talked of a 'Scarf tying' session Oxford NHS are offering.

What can I do, she knows I can't drive any more and has offered to take me to Sainsbury's - that's her helping me, but in a strange way I hope it's doing something (making her feel positive) too.

Any thoughts?

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Cod, I did ring her, and surprisingly she wanted to talk about it a lot. I thought she'd have talked about it to so many people for so long. I just think ... what else can I talk about? Me having known about it (and her having known I know about it) meant that she wanted to talk about it. But I just want to put some 'normal' talk things her way, if that makes any sense.

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have you seen that book called something like "What can I do to help"? It was written by a journalist who had lung cancer (she died about 2 weeks ago ). I haven't read the whole book but there was a long article about it in the Observer a few weeks ago which I though was excellent. The book was written from her perspcetive about things that people did and said that were helpful and things which weren't.

Just been to find it - it's called "What can I do to Help? 75 Practical Ideas for Family and Friends from Cancer's Frontline" by Deborah Hutton. All the royalities go to Macmillan Cancer Relief

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good luck carla, you sound like a good friend. She most probably does want tot alk about it and have a sense of reality also. i am sure you have enough about you to be able to normaL THINGS, LISTEn chat and be yourself without worrying too much