Melissa

My step sister Melissa just recently found out she has cancer again. She had it about 4 years ago, lost all her hair, and braved it out. This was a difficult feat, and everyone is amazed at her progress. She was even able to have a baby (my adorable niece Leah) after having one of her ovaries removed. Last time she had this really difficult bout with cancer, she made a friend who had the same strain as her, her friend did not make it. This shows how much the odds were against this type of cancer.

Luckily, she is very in touch with her body and finds out early when something is wrong. A few weeks ago, she found a growth in her abdomen and quickly went to get it removed/checked out. When I saw her this weekend in Greenport, she was recovering with staples still in her gut, and waiting for the results from the tests they took to see if it had spread. A few nights ago, she had to go into the ER because something was growing right where she had just been stapled up. She and my family are less optimistic this time, as they do not yet know what kind of cancer it is. They are thinking it is small cell, which is the fastest growing, most difficult type to beat.

I know that I always proclaim myself atheist/agnostic, but that doesn't mean I am not spiritual. I have been thinking about her a lot and hoping that she will once again come out of it like a phoenix. Even though we aren't very close, she has been a part of my family for most of my life and she has been nothing but sweet to me. It really sucks how bad things happen to nice people. There really aren't any words for how sorrowful I feel right now for her. Why can't diseases just happen to mean people?

I would really like to go visit her and bring her flowers or a card or something, but I hate hospitals and dread going alone. I know how dumb that sounds. For all the people close to me that have died, all my philosophical classes on death, and the way that I have come to understand death as an inevitable part of life; hospitals still scare the crap out of me. I should just get over it and go, I need to not be so selfish right now.