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Sent in by: LadyCerridwen48

We were the wild ones, so sure those days would never end, now they're only memories, my friend



Boyfriend and I have known each other for almost 20 years, although we've only been dating for...not quite 5 years (this time around). We met through mutual friends, and a few months later, I met his sister. Not knowing that they were related, her and I hit it off, and formed a strong friendship, independent of my (at times, somewhat complicated) relationship with her brother. We spent the bulk of our late teens and most of our 20's drinking together, just having a great time. She practically lived at my old apartment, she even had her own key. Now that boyfriend and I are together, it's kind of cool, because that almost makes her my sister-in-law, and what could be better than having one of your best friends as your SIL? Sure beats my last deal, my ex husband has 8 siblings (no, I'm serious, 6 sisters, 2 brothers) and the only one I could even tolerate spending any time with at all lived all the way out in Kansas.

And now she is going to die. My friend for nearly the past 20 years, my friend that has been on vacations with my family, my friend that was a bridesmaid in my wedding (not to her brother, we're just dating), and was scared I'd be mad because the shoes didn't come big enough for her, is going to die. Unless there's some amazing medical breakthrough in the next several DAYS, one of my oldest friends is going to die, at the age of 34. She's 5 weeks older than I am.

Her and her boyfriend closed on their first house a few days after Thanksgiving. Boyfriend and I helped them move all their furniture and stuff in, it was a nice day, cute little house, kinda small, but a good "starter home". Big enough for the 2 of them, and a baby, but they'd have to move someplace bigger by the time the kid would be old enough for school. The kid that would have been my niece or nephew.

A few weeks before Christmas, she had minor surgery on her arm. No big deal, just scraping off some calcium deposits, something she's always been prone to. Bursitis, I think it's called. A few days before Christmas, she still wasn't healing, the stitches kept falling out. Bunches of tests and scans and what have you later, we come to learn that the reason the stitches kept falling out was because she has melanoma, and it's worked it's way into her lymphatic system, interfering with her ability to heal properly. She got all the test results back 3 days before Christmas, and had what turned out to be the offending mole removed the day after Christmas. Not much bigger than a pencil eraser on the surface, close to the size of a child's fist under her flesh. Hiding inside of her, just waiting to pounce.

And pounce it did. We had everyone here for Christmas, set up a small buffet in the living room. We live in a third floor walk-up. She climbed all three flights stairs, looked no worse for the wear when she got to the top, and just like normal, joined me in the kitchen to smoke a cigarette without her boyfriend spouting anti-smoking nonsense (he quit a few months earlier, and, well, you smokers know how some ex-smokers can be) at her while she helped me prep the spinach dip and crackers.

Exactly 2 months later, February 25th, she had her first major surgery. Eight and a half hours under the knife, and they managed to remove the tumor from her groin. It was about the size of a kitten, and had left her unable to walk for the past 3 weeks, due to it's location. She needed a reconstructive plastic surgeon to close her up, and needed not only skin but muscle grafting. Somehow, that incision managed to get infected with, of all things, e-coli. Then she wound up with pnumonia. As many of you know, any sort of infection while undergoing chemotherapy can be catastrophic. But she pulled through, and things actually looked hopeful for a bit. Unfortunately, while recovering from the infections in both her incision and her lungs, chemo had to be put on hold.

Now she's got 4 tumors in her abdominal/pelvic area, the smallest of them only slightly smaller than the one removed in February. They're affecting her circulation terribly, she's bloated and swollen from the waist down. Her thighs and legs look like that of a woman 3 times her weight. And the tumors are growing, so quickly that you can almost see them get larger. They're rupturing out of her skin, and one of the areas they're breaking through is wickedly infected.

So, she's on her last chance medication, some kind of potential "magic bullet". It's worked in 7% of the melanoma patients it's been tried on. SEVEN PERCENT. That wasn't a typo, I didn't leave a digit off. If it's going to work, her tumors should be visibly smaller in 7-10 days. Today's day 4. If it's not going to work, she'll die withing a month, maybe 6 weeks, as the tumors basically press her to death from the inside out.

I've never felt so helpless, so small, so insignificant, in my life.