The other day, I came into the front room and found Panda talking to someone I had never seen before.

At first I couldn’t tell if he was a squirrel or a chipmunk, but he seemed nice enough, so I went over to say hi.

“Who are you?” I asked, curious, but trying to be polite at the same time. “And are you a squirrel or a chipmunk?”

“My name is Winky, and I’m a chipmunk,” our new acquaintance replied. “I’ve already met Panda, so you must be Foster.” I responded in the affirmative. “It’s nice to meet you, Winky,” I said in a friendly manner. “Do you have a last name?” Winky hesitated for a moment. “Umm…my last name is Smith.”

Panda and I groaned. “The real name, please!” We had heard enough of Mom’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie audiobooks to know that nobody’s last name is really Smith. Winky looked uncomfortable. “Umm, you can just call me Winky,” he said. We decided not to press the issue. “So, tell us about yourself,” Panda requested, to get us off the subject.

“Mom got me at Bath & Body Works,” Winky began. “She uses me as a snack carrier. I’m the perfect size for her trail mix.”

I sniffed his zipper uncertainly. “Hmm, you do smell a little bit like trail mix,” I observed. “But why does Mom need a snack carrier?”

Winky looked surprised. “I go with her to chemotherapy,” he replied, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m the perfect size to fit in her cold carrier along with her frozen socks and mittens.”

“Wait, what??” I asked. “What do you mean, frozen socks and mittens? And what’s chemotherapy? Can you start from the beginning? What’s going on here?” Winky looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Foster,” he said kindly. “I guess I’m so used to it that it seems natural to me.”

“Mom has to go to chemotherapy because in June she found out she has a small bit of breast cancer in her body.” Winky’s words hit me like a ton of bricks. “Cancer?” I asked. “Isn’t that like, a bad thing?”

Panda suggested we continue our discussion in the bedroom where it was more comfortable. As we jumped up onto the bed Winky continued his narrative. “Sometimes certain cells in people’s bodies can start multiplying faster than they are supposed to. If they are the wrong kind of cells, they can become what the doctors call cancer. If somebody has cancer it can be a bad thing, but it depends on what kind it is. Chemotherapy is the medicine doctors use to make the cancer go away.”

Panda and I looked at each other. “We only know our Daddy from pictures,” Panda said. “But we know he passed away from cancer seven years ago.” Winky nodded. “Yes,” he said somberly. “I know. But this is not the same kind of cancer that Daddy had. What Mom has is very treatable, and after she finishes her treatments she should be fine.”

Panda and I felt much better when we heard that. “Okay,” I said, relieved. “That’s good to know. But what about the frozen socks and mittens?”

Winky laughed good naturedly. “Oh, that? Well, some of the medicine they are giving Mom could cause her to get pain and tingling in her feet and hands. It’s called neuropathy. But if she puts ice on them, it can help prevent that.”

“Wow,” I remarked. “I don’t know if I would like ice on my paws!” Panda had his own opinion. “It sounds cool to me, Bro,” he pointed out. “We pandas like the snow! Remember when we went to China to see my long-lost relatives?” I reflected for a moment. “I guess,” I said. “But it wasn’t snowing when we were there.”

Panda conceded. “You’re right on that one,” he replied. “But I do know that there is snow in China and my panda relatives like it a lot.”

“So how long does she have to keep the frozen socks on?” I asked, getting us back on the subject. Winky thought for a minute. “It’s only about an hour,” he said. “Then she can take them off when she gets her next medicine.”

“Her next medicine?” Panda asked, his eyes wide. “How many medicines does she have to get?” Winky tilted his head as he thought. “There are several different ones,” he said. “Maybe about four? There are nurses who hook the people up to their infusions.”

“The infusion center is really nice too,” Winky went on. “They have comfortable chairs, and everybody is super friendly to us.” Panda and I were starting to feel better about everything. “Okay,” I said slowly. “So it isn’t as bad as I thought. I’ve noticed Mom seems to be feeling fine, so she must not be having that many side effects from the chemo.”

Winky agreed. “Right now she’s on a low dose of chemo combined with immunotherapy,” he explained. “She has to go once a week for twelve weeks in a row, but she’s already done three of them. She pretty much feels fine so far. But she has noticed her hair is thinning out a little.” Panda’s eyes widened. “Great,” he said, looking at me. “So now you and Mom are both shedding!” I was less than amused. “Dude, that’s not funny,” I replied. We chatted with Winky until it was time for him to go back into Mom’s chemo bag. “I’ll see you next week,” he said cheerfully as he disappeared into the sewing room.

Later on, Panda and I had a little debriefing session. “That was a lot of information to take in,” Panda said, and I agreed. Then I thought of something. “Hey, why do you think Winky didn’t want to tell us his last name?”

Panda suggested we go online and look up chipmunk names. I didn’t think we’d find anything, but he Googled “chipmunk names” and surprisingly we found a whole list of them.

“Oh, I see,” Panda said as he scrolled through the list of chipmunk names. “That is a pretty funny last name.” I looked over his shoulder at the laptop screen. “Winky Nutmuffin?” I exclaimed. “Yeah, you’re right. No wonder he felt uncomfortable telling us. Let’s not ask him about it anymore.”

Panda agreed. “You’re right, he said. “Winky is a nice friend for us. We don’t want to make him feel bad.” And with that, we decided to take a nap.

Note from Mom: I thought I would let Foster and Panda introduce this subject to everyone for me, because it’s really awkward to walk up (or write) to someone and say, “Oh by the way, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.” This post is mostly written for the kids who follow Foster and Panda’s adventures, but later on I will do one that is geared for the rest of my readers. It was caught early, and I was given a good prognosis. But I figured that to be fair, a little “truth in blogging” was in order.