The first thing they do when you show up for chemotherapy is have you step on a scale.
Today was the beginning of Gina's 4th round of chemo. The double-digit readout on the scale made her cry.
Gina weighs 75% of what she did before this started.
Cancer takes away many things, including pounds, but we'd prefer to think about what having cancer gives you.
Daily contact, cards, calls, texts, love and support from four decades worth of friends.
Delicious homemade dinners that appear on your front porch.
The softest, coziest pajamas a girl could ever want.
Jewelry, shirts, socks, hoodies, sweaters and sneakers covered in stars arrive from friends you wish you saw way more often.
Mums and pumpkins magically appear to decorate your front yard, where the leaves have been raked up by a thoughtful neighbor.
Team Gina t-shirts (courtesy of caring co-workers) are gifted and proudly worn by everyone in the family. (As seen on Delaney).
Reams of trashy magazines—which Gina loves—get delivered in bulk, via FedEx or just mysteriously rolled up in newspaper delivery bags.
Friends arrange for an amazing photographer to come take a family picture. And then that photographer decides to take individual portraits of everyone, too.
Painters gift you beautiful paintings.
People send you glitterbombs full of teeny-tiny little glitter stars. (We love you, but seriously, please stop. We're begging you.)
Creams are kindly and generously shared to help mend your sore face and cracked hands.
Friends and family fly in from across the country and overseas, just to cook for you and sit next to you for a little while.
People that you've mentored over the course of your career reach out to make sure you know that you've made their lives better.
Every time you pick up a new prescription at the pharmacy, you get to do a little fist pump when the register says $0.00, even if it's because your annual family deductible was met days into the process.
And you get millions and millions of stars coursing through your body courtesy of the amazing people reading this too-long-post of ours.
Cancer takes away many things, but we've never felt more loved and connected than we do today.
Thank you.
⭐️
(Mini-Gina's fortune cookie says, "Your sparkling eyes give a healing light to those you meet.")
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