It’s amazing how quickly a situation can make a complete 180.
We had just finished planning a bachelor party for a good friend from college. We were going to head to the city, go on a brewery tour, and then catch the Sox game.
Then the email came, essentially saying, “hey, we need to postpone this. I’ll be out of commission for a while. Feel free to email or call if you want to know what’s up.”
Not knowing what to expect, I called. I figured maybe something happened to his family, his fiancee, something that would make him unavailable at least for the foreseeable future. I never imagined I’d hear the “C” word dropped.
Here he was, this 25-year-old kid in the pinnacle of his health – newly engaged, just bought a house – until he discovered that a cut in his throat wasn’t clotting and then, boom, diagnosed with cancer.
The most treatable kind of leukemia, he tells me.
I sit there, unable to even generate a sentence: “I, uh, are you, uh….”
He lives in Champaign, so checking in on his progress is not as easy as I’d hope. He keeps me in the loop, though. Telling me about his doctor visits, sending pictures every so often of big events, such as shaving his head or heading to chemo for the last time.
Flash forward to the present, he is cancer free. I was fortunate enough to travel to Champaign about a month ago to celebrate his remission. I’m one of maybe 35 people to attend, and we celebrate into the night. He looks healthy, which is a good thing.
He is someone who inspires me. Here’s a kid who is told he has cancer, decides he won’t let the disease get the best of him, and fights it with 110 percent effort. And he wins.
You don’t think about these kinds of things until it happens to someone you love. And even when it happens to them, you don’t want to think about it because all situations will flood your mind.
This is my second brush with a friend being diagnosed (that I’m aware of). About two years ago, another friend from college, just 21 at the time, was diagnosed with breast cancer. 21 years old. She fought, went to therapy groups, kept us informed with how chemotherapy was going. I saw this girl pushed to her limits, but she never faltered.
Not even when the doctors essentially told her the only way to have children post-cancer was either via a surrogate or through an adoption service.
Not even when the reactions from the chemotherapy drugs kept her up at all hours of the night.
Not even when the treatment limited her movement from the bed to the recliner for days on end.
I went to see her and her husband (also a college friend — they’re kind of a package deal) two weekends ago, and though she had to work for the majority of my visit (she’s a nurse in the oncology unit at a hospital in Peoria), she still had a smile on her face. And a cancer-free diagnosis.
Oh, and she’s pregnant. About seven months along, but as healthy as a pregnant woman can be. To see this conclusion after knowing what her struggles were just brings an eternal smile to my face. I know she still faces risks with the remainder of her pregnancy, and I know she’ll kick them in the butt, but there’s just a sense of happiness, seeing someone who’s been pushed to the limit, being rewarded with the opportunity to begin a family.
