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I was on my fourth radiation session. I was sitting across from my friend Rachel\u2019s husband, Rob. He was holding a paperback, dog-eared copy of The Stories of John Cheever<\/em>. Rob was my driver that day.<\/p>\n When we\u2019d first arrived at the medical center, Rob found a seat in the waiting room, while I went to the dressing room. I carefully took off my clothes, peeled a rectangle of gauze from my chest, and pulled on a white gown. The Maine Med radiation oncology department is on the basement level, and the cold air felt uncomfortable on my bare arms. But pain had taken on an unanticipated psychological dimension: Feeling it meant I was still here to feel it.<\/p>\n Then I took a photo of myself in the dressing room, smiling. I\u2019d taken one before each session since starting treatment, as a way of marking the weeks. As always, I sent the photo to my husband Dan, and to my friend Rachel. I was here. This happened. Then I left the dressing room to join Rob on the blue chairs.<\/p>\n Two weeks earlier, it was Rachel who had come up with the plan: my radiation buddy system. I\u2019d gone in for my final pre-treatment CT scan, and sitting in my car afterward, I felt my courage abandon me. The aloneness of cancer is existential. You and only you go into the strange room with the beeping machines. You alone wake with a start in the middle of the night, thinking: I have breast cancer. Life will never be the same<\/em>. I called Rachel from the parking lot and told her: I wasn\u2019t sure I was brave enough to drive to radiation by myself. She paused, then replied, \u201cI\u2019ll figure this out.\u201d <\/p>\n Within a few days, she had. Recruiting four female friends and three of their husbands, Rachel made a schedule of my radiation drivers, all of whom had gladly signed up. Since Rachel\u2019s work schedule wouldn\u2019t allow her to drive me herself, she served as coordinator, and texted me the night before each appointment with the plan. Tomorrow, your driver is Merry. She\u2019ll be there at 9:15 a.m.<\/em><\/p>\n On that Monday, four days into treatment, the skin on my breast was already starting to sting. Rob sat across from me, and I asked him about the book he was reading. He told me about finding the paperback at the swap shop at our local dump. I told him I loved Cheever\u2019s stories, too \u2014 especially \u201cThe Swimmer.\u201d After my session, Rob drove me home, and I got out of the car feeling lighter. <\/p>\n When you\u2019re preparing for radiation, the doctors will tell you that you can drive yourself. It\u2019s easy; it\u2019s only 20 minutes. But it\u2019s not easy \u2014 and it\u2019s never only 20 minutes. Perhaps I could have managed the actual mechanics of driving, but I know it was those rides from my friends that got me through the treatment.<\/p>\n When my friend Nora brought me to my appointment, she came into the exam room and asked questions. On Leah\u2019s days, we\u2019d have breakfast first at my house \u2014 a Dutch baby with raspberries. Emma cried with me when we saw a boy, the same age as my younger son, arriving at the radiation center for treatment. Merry showed up on her driving days with bouquets of flowers from her garden. Surrounded by longtime friends \u2014 chatting, the way we\u2019d done for years \u2014 I was able to see cancer as only a part of my larger life.<\/p>\n On my last day of radiation, in mid-July, my husband, Dan, brought doughnuts for the radiation team at Maine Med. After my session, everyone gathered and clapped as I rang the cowbell to announce that I was done. When I got home, our older son was standing in the dining room with a Lazy Daisy cake he\u2019d baked, covered with candles.<\/p>\n It\u2019s now been almost a year since those appointments, and I still remember them clearly: my breast swelling to the size of a watermelon; my nipple bleeding and my areola peeling off; the instructions coming through the loudspeaker, reminding me to hold my breath and stay still. <\/p>\n But I can\u2019t recall the pain anymore. What I can<\/em> still feel is my friend Jess\u2019s leg against mine on the waiting-room sofa; the relief that rolled through me when I left the treatment room and found Emma or Rob or Dan waiting for me. More than anything, I feel a deep sense of worthiness. During those five weeks of driving \u2014 with conversations about books and teenagers and what goes best on Dutch babies \u2014 I learned how it felt to be truly cared for. I realized that love can take on many shapes: flowers, cakes, spreadsheet schedules. <\/p>\n Sometimes it was as simple as a friend in the waiting room holding a paperback, ready to talk about it all the way home. <\/p>\n Caitlin Shetterly<\/a> is a journalist, editor, and author. Her new novel, The Gulf of Lions<\/a>, was published in May. She lives in Maine with her husband and two sons.<\/em><\/p>\n P.S. \u201c9 life lessons I learned after my cancer diagnosis,\u201d<\/a> and what does it mean to think about cancer as a battle<\/a>?<\/p>\n (Photo by \u00c1ngela Rober\/Stocksy.)<\/p>\n