Ovarian Cancer Treatment Leads Two Women to Friendship

It can be hard to cope with a serious diagnosis such as cancer. Along with physical pain comes emotional and psychological turmoil as well. Where can cancer patients find hope and support for each other and themselves?

A Story of How Two People Found Friendship While Fighting Cancer

Erin Barrett is a businesswoman, writer, mother of two, and cancer survivor. Although cancer is a devastating and terrifying diagnosis, Erin tells of how her disease helped her find a great friendship during the hardest trial of her life.

When someone is diagnosed with a deadly disease, it can be very difficult to cope with it; apart from the physical pain, there is also psychological and emotional turmoil that come along with the disease. Below is the story of two individuals who found friendship in each other while fighting cancer.

Erin Barrett, who is a businesswoman, had been battling cancer when she fell in with Nicola, whom she had met previously because their husbands were good friends. But the two hadn’t gotten to know each other that well until they were both diagnosed with cancer. They met each other at their first appointment and from there, fate spun a different story for them altogether. Both women thought they were pregnant, but after they each went to the doctor, the diagnoses confirmed they had large cancer masses. Erin had ovarian cancer and Nicola had a rare form of it. They began to share the same appointments for chemo and also suffered similar side effects such as hair loss and eventual hysterectomies. Due to the surgeries, both women also went into early menopause at the same time, although they were still in their mid-30s. They found a level of acceptance as well as empathy that was unmatched, and no one could have better understood their emotions and anxieties than each other. Since Nicola’s cancer was a rare form, her treatment had more troubles and was also less successful. Nicola’s spirits were quite low because of this, and it took another hit each time she was told that the previous treatments did not have much of an effect. She went through all of this with Erin at her side as her best friend, providing ample support during these uncertainties. Both of them had their own hardships that they handled with each other as support.

Both of them knew they had no one else who could understand their situation better than each other. They found someone to whom they could talk and share their experiences; it was a bond they could not share even with their husbands. Both Erin and Nicola had nothing to hide from each other, and their emotions would spill out in the form of tears or swear words. Instead of making their cancer situation gross or depressing, they instead found humor and laughter in those intimate, sometimes embarrassing, situations during all of those cancer treatments. They also had their own share of happy moments and memories to make them laugh during those tough times.

After long months of suffering and pain, they both now celebrate life knowing that they are free of cancer. They walked through this tough journey hand in hand, and today, they survive to share their cancer experiences with others while also remaining the best of friends. Both of them donated money towards the BC Cancer Foundation to fund gynecological cancer research, and they have a dream of riding bikes together along with their husbands in the foundation’s fundraising event.