Melanoma - why do I care? One word, ERICA!
My friend Erica was a beautiful, loving and happy person. She was the kind of person who could enter a room and people would flock to her. She had an infectious laugh and people enjoyed being in her presence. I can’t think of a time in her life where she ever lacked friends, everywhere she worked, went to school, lived, she always had an abundance of friends. I considered myself unusually lucky to have her consider me one of her best friends. Friends like that don’t come along often and when they die, a part of you dies with them.
She and I met back in 1987. She worked at a store called J.Jacob’s. I went there with my boyfriend at the time to do some shopping. She was 5’6”ish with long blond hair and about 110 pounds and she was telling my boyfriend that he should come to her party. Ahem, I was right there. Of course, right after that I immediately asked him why “that girl” was inviting him to a party right in front of me. Well, it turns out that she was good friends with the girls that lived in the apartment below us and it was their party and of course I could come too. Well shortly after that, she moved in to the 4-plex where my boyfriend and I lived and we became great friends. She always denied hitting on my boyfriend and I believe her, it was her style to have many friends (both men and women) and entertain. She lived to entertain! In fact one of the last things that she did was throw an Easter party (this I will come back to).
We became partners in crime. Going out on Thursday nights, shopping together, lunches, movies, flirting with boys, spending time helping each other pick out the perfect outfit for parties, doing our hair and make-up together and much more. One of our favorite pastimes was doing photo shoots. We would pick a location and take pictures of each other being goofy, it was fun. Of course we were growing up, getting educations and maturing, but our friendship stayed strong.
Over the years, we did go in opposite directions at times, but one phone call or letter would erase all the time apart and it was like we were 19 again. By the time we were in our 30’s we had settled into our careers and were on our way to figuring out who we were as women. For me, I had my son and God. For her, she found a great love in a long time friend, she married that guy. But happily ever after didn’t happen for her.
We met up for beers one night, me and my then boyfriend (not the same guy as before but still not the one I married –the one before him), and her and her fiancé. At one point she said, “ooh get that itch” and he knew exactly where to scratch. She told me that she had a place on her back that itched all the time and that her fiancé thought that she should get it checked by her doctor. An itch – who worries about an itch? They got married and it was beautiful. She looked great and everything went off perfectly. Until she finally made that doctors appointment.
Shortly after her wedding I met my future husband. In less than 9 months I was planning my own wedding and she was going to be my matron of honor. She came over to my house to get measured for her dress and asked if there was anything we could do to make sure her scars from her mole removals didn’t show. I remember asking her why she had those 2 moles removed and she said because they were cancerous. I was so ignorant at the time that I thought that was all that needed to be done and I told her I was glad that they removed them. I didn’t realize that her life was in jeopardy and that she was starting a very rough and devastating journey. She had melanoma.
At first the doctors had thought that they had removed all of the cancerous moles and the hope was that the cancer, if it continued, would move in a downward motion and not up. At the time they thought she had stage III cancer but possibly stage IV. It turns out it wasn’t moving down but it was moving up. It wasn’t long before it was in her lymph system and she had a few surgeries to try to remove lumps. It was becoming more obvious that this cancer was aggressive and so aggressive measures would need to be taken. Since conventional chemo doesn’t work on this kind of cancer, she was researching alternatives, things that were approved in Canada but not here in the states. Her doctors were trying “new treatments” as well. Unfortunately she didn’t always know if she was getting the actual medication or a placebo.
I will never forget the Saturday morning when I began to realize the severity of her cancer. I was the first one up and was relaxing while reading my book and drinking coffee. I remember the phone ringing at about 9:30 and thinking “who is calling so early on a Saturday?” and running to answer the phone before it woke everyone up. The news wasn’t good. She had had a body scan and they had found spots on her liver and her lungs. After we hung up, I got that sinking feeling that everything was not going to be OK. I realized for the first time that I just might be losing my best friend.
Things never really got better even though she did her best to remain hopeful. This was a scary time and I felt so helpless most of the time, all I could do was to let her know that I was praying for her. About a month and a half before she passed she called. I didn’t hear the phone ring and it went to voice mail. When I got a chance to listen to the message, she was distraught and crying, she wanted me to come over as soon as possible. I did. She told me how she felt like God was abandoning her and she felt alone and scared. Over the years, we didn’t see eye to eye about God. I was involved with church and building a relationship with Jesus, and she wanted a cookie cutter religion that would fit her needs. God was trying to get her attention. Luckily my husband, who is a very spiritual man, was there and with his help, she made the choice to follow God. Her thirst for His love and His Word were insatiable. She wanted to do all the things that a born again Christian does, she wanted a Bible, she wanted to tell everyone about her faith and very importantly to her, she wanted to get baptized.
Well like I mentioned earlier, she loved to entertain. As a last ditch effort her doctors decided to try chemo, unfortunately this made her very sick. The cancer in her liver was making it difficult for her liver to work properly and things were going downhill fast. She was admitted to the hospital in order to help her manage the pain and whatever else they could do to help. She called me from the hospital to say she wanted to have and Easter party, could I help? Of course I could. On the Thursday before Easter, my husband and I went to visit her in the hospital. She was so sick and in so much pain, she had lost so much weight and just didn’t look like herself anymore but she was glad to see us and all she could talk about was getting baptized and planning the Easter celebration.
While I visited with Erica, our husbands went out for a brief walk. We spoke for a little while but she was tired and we needed to get home to our family. I will never forget the elevator ride down to our car. My husband told me that her husband said they would be leaving the hospital the next day. I knew that she was too sick to go home and that by sending her home, they were killing her. She had already signed the DNR (do not resuscitate) form and she was going home to die.
That Friday before Easter, as she lay on her couch, surrounded by family and friends, my husband baptized her. We prayed and cried and it was a beautiful moment that is forever burned into my soul. Easter Sunday came and she was surrounded by more family and friends and laughter and love. My husband read to her the story of Jesus going to the cross while she and others listened; there really has never been a more perfect Easter. Her life on this earth was coming to an end but her eternal life was just beginning.
She passed away on April 20th, 2004, quietly, peacefully at home. Her struggle was over, her pain was gone, and she was now at home.
Watching a loved one struggle with disappointing news, go through painful treatments only to lose their life anyway is painful, discouraging and makes you feel utterly helpless. I write about her and I talk about melanoma all the time. I’m sure my friends and family have heard more than they care too, but if it saves one persons life, if it keeps families and friends from experiencing the depression, anxiety, hopelessness and despair that cancer can bring then I will continue talking about it. Skin cancer is not a death sentence IF it’s caught early enough, that’s why it important to get your skin checked regularly. And don’t be ignorant to think that just because you don’t have moles or freckles that you can’t get it. Everyone has skin and even if it’s not melanoma, there are other kinds of skin cancers that you should be aware of.
I hope you enjoyed the story of Erica and why it is so important to me to spread the word about melanoma. Go see your doctor, get your skin checked, wear sunscreen, and live a long and healthy life.
My friend Erica was a beautiful, loving and happy person. She was the kind of person who could enter a room and people would flock to her. She had an infectious laugh and people enjoyed being in her presence. I can’t think of a time in her life where she ever lacked friends, everywhere she worked, went to school, lived, she always had an abundance of friends. I considered myself unusually lucky to have her consider me one of her best friends. Friends like that don’t come along often and when they die, a part of you dies with them.
She and I met back in 1987. She worked at a store called J.Jacob’s. I went there with my boyfriend at the time to do some shopping. She was 5’6”ish with long blond hair and about 110 pounds and she was telling my boyfriend that he should come to her party. Ahem, I was right there. Of course, right after that I immediately asked him why “that girl” was inviting him to a party right in front of me. Well, it turns out that she was good friends with the girls that lived in the apartment below us and it was their party and of course I could come too. Well shortly after that, she moved in to the 4-plex where my boyfriend and I lived and we became great friends. She always denied hitting on my boyfriend and I believe her, it was her style to have many friends (both men and women) and entertain. She lived to entertain! In fact one of the last things that she did was throw an Easter party (this I will come back to).
We became partners in crime. Going out on Thursday nights, shopping together, lunches, movies, flirting with boys, spending time helping each other pick out the perfect outfit for parties, doing our hair and make-up together and much more. One of our favorite pastimes was doing photo shoots. We would pick a location and take pictures of each other being goofy, it was fun. Of course we were growing up, getting educations and maturing, but our friendship stayed strong.
Over the years, we did go in opposite directions at times, but one phone call or letter would erase all the time apart and it was like we were 19 again. By the time we were in our 30’s we had settled into our careers and were on our way to figuring out who we were as women. For me, I had my son and God. For her, she found a great love in a long time friend, she married that guy. But happily ever after didn’t happen for her.
We met up for beers one night, me and my then boyfriend (not the same guy as before but still not the one I married –the one before him), and her and her fiancé. At one point she said, “ooh get that itch” and he knew exactly where to scratch. She told me that she had a place on her back that itched all the time and that her fiancé thought that she should get it checked by her doctor. An itch – who worries about an itch? They got married and it was beautiful. She looked great and everything went off perfectly. Until she finally made that doctors appointment.
Shortly after her wedding I met my future husband. In less than 9 months I was planning my own wedding and she was going to be my matron of honor. She came over to my house to get measured for her dress and asked if there was anything we could do to make sure her scars from her mole removals didn’t show. I remember asking her why she had those 2 moles removed and she said because they were cancerous. I was so ignorant at the time that I thought that was all that needed to be done and I told her I was glad that they removed them. I didn’t realize that her life was in jeopardy and that she was starting a very rough and devastating journey. She had melanoma.
At first the doctors had thought that they had removed all of the cancerous moles and the hope was that the cancer, if it continued, would move in a downward motion and not up. At the time they thought she had stage III cancer but possibly stage IV. It turns out it wasn’t moving down but it was moving up. It wasn’t long before it was in her lymph system and she had a few surgeries to try to remove lumps. It was becoming more obvious that this cancer was aggressive and so aggressive measures would need to be taken. Since conventional chemo doesn’t work on this kind of cancer, she was researching alternatives, things that were approved in Canada but not here in the states. Her doctors were trying “new treatments” as well. Unfortunately she didn’t always know if she was getting the actual medication or a placebo.
I will never forget the Saturday morning when I began to realize the severity of her cancer. I was the first one up and was relaxing while reading my book and drinking coffee. I remember the phone ringing at about 9:30 and thinking “who is calling so early on a Saturday?” and running to answer the phone before it woke everyone up. The news wasn’t good. She had had a body scan and they had found spots on her liver and her lungs. After we hung up, I got that sinking feeling that everything was not going to be OK. I realized for the first time that I just might be losing my best friend.
Things never really got better even though she did her best to remain hopeful. This was a scary time and I felt so helpless most of the time, all I could do was to let her know that I was praying for her. About a month and a half before she passed she called. I didn’t hear the phone ring and it went to voice mail. When I got a chance to listen to the message, she was distraught and crying, she wanted me to come over as soon as possible. I did. She told me how she felt like God was abandoning her and she felt alone and scared. Over the years, we didn’t see eye to eye about God. I was involved with church and building a relationship with Jesus, and she wanted a cookie cutter religion that would fit her needs. God was trying to get her attention. Luckily my husband, who is a very spiritual man, was there and with his help, she made the choice to follow God. Her thirst for His love and His Word were insatiable. She wanted to do all the things that a born again Christian does, she wanted a Bible, she wanted to tell everyone about her faith and very importantly to her, she wanted to get baptized.
Well like I mentioned earlier, she loved to entertain. As a last ditch effort her doctors decided to try chemo, unfortunately this made her very sick. The cancer in her liver was making it difficult for her liver to work properly and things were going downhill fast. She was admitted to the hospital in order to help her manage the pain and whatever else they could do to help. She called me from the hospital to say she wanted to have and Easter party, could I help? Of course I could. On the Thursday before Easter, my husband and I went to visit her in the hospital. She was so sick and in so much pain, she had lost so much weight and just didn’t look like herself anymore but she was glad to see us and all she could talk about was getting baptized and planning the Easter celebration.
While I visited with Erica, our husbands went out for a brief walk. We spoke for a little while but she was tired and we needed to get home to our family. I will never forget the elevator ride down to our car. My husband told me that her husband said they would be leaving the hospital the next day. I knew that she was too sick to go home and that by sending her home, they were killing her. She had already signed the DNR (do not resuscitate) form and she was going home to die.
That Friday before Easter, as she lay on her couch, surrounded by family and friends, my husband baptized her. We prayed and cried and it was a beautiful moment that is forever burned into my soul. Easter Sunday came and she was surrounded by more family and friends and laughter and love. My husband read to her the story of Jesus going to the cross while she and others listened; there really has never been a more perfect Easter. Her life on this earth was coming to an end but her eternal life was just beginning.
She passed away on April 20th, 2004, quietly, peacefully at home. Her struggle was over, her pain was gone, and she was now at home.
Watching a loved one struggle with disappointing news, go through painful treatments only to lose their life anyway is painful, discouraging and makes you feel utterly helpless. I write about her and I talk about melanoma all the time. I’m sure my friends and family have heard more than they care too, but if it saves one persons life, if it keeps families and friends from experiencing the depression, anxiety, hopelessness and despair that cancer can bring then I will continue talking about it. Skin cancer is not a death sentence IF it’s caught early enough, that’s why it important to get your skin checked regularly. And don’t be ignorant to think that just because you don’t have moles or freckles that you can’t get it. Everyone has skin and even if it’s not melanoma, there are other kinds of skin cancers that you should be aware of.
I hope you enjoyed the story of Erica and why it is so important to me to spread the word about melanoma. Go see your doctor, get your skin checked, wear sunscreen, and live a long and healthy life.
posted by Michelle at 1:57 PM
2 Comments:
I am so sorry about your friend. I had a melanoma removed in 2002 when I was 28 years old. I was lucky; it did not spread. It is a scary cancer. Now that I have a son I worry everyday that something else may show up.
Thanks for reading my blog. I also have very freckly skin and go in every six months to get checked. Early prevention is truly the best answer at this point. Good luck to you.
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