Adios, amiga

Another one of my OVCA cancer buddies died this week.
That fact fills me with so many emotions, I find it hard to say anything at all or to know where to begin. But I have heard the beginning is a good place to start, so let’s let the unfolding of time be the determining factor in how this story gets told.

When I got diagnosed in May of 2004, a friend of mine said she had a friend in San Francisco who also had some sort of gynie cancer and we could talk/swap e-mails/morbid support if I wanted. And that’s how I came to be cancer buddies with Heather McAllister.

She had been diagnosed 3 or 4 months before me and so was a good resource and mentor for me when I was right there at the starting line, terrified of what to expect. It was really important to me to be able to talk to someone who had done the procedures I was about to endure. Cancer patients/survivors get their love and support from their friends and loved ones, but the support one can get from a fellow patient/survivor is precious in its own way.
When I had bad side effects, and couldn’t sleep for days, Heather told me what drugs she had been given and what worked for her. That made a huge difference because sometimes information passes more quickly on the ground, among us in the silly blue gowns, than it does higher up, among the white lab coat set.

My chemo brought my CA 125 count down.
Heather’s first chemo didn’t take as well and she had to go back.
Again.
And again.
And again.

About a month ago, I got an e-mail saying she had decided to stop chemo, and that with that decision, the doctor’s thought she had 3 to 6 months to live.

On Monday of this week, I found out that she had arrange for an assisted suicide for the following day. By mid-Tuesday afternoon, I was receiving e-mails saying that Heather had taken the treatment and her fight was over and folks wished her well on the other side.

For me, it’s all so sad and strange.
We were cancer peers in many ways.
Diagnosed around the same time with the same stage of the same cancer.
I am sad, very sad that she died and profoundly aware of how easily that could have been me. I guess it’s a bit like having been in the trenches with someone.

Heather was a Fat/Social Justice Activist and the founder of the Fat Bottom Revue, a burlesque troupe full of really hot fat grrrls.

The thing Heather wanted to say, that message she wanted to leave us with, is that we should love our bodies, just like they are and appreciate all they do for us, and that we should love each other.

How about we all try that? How about that for a post-Valentine’s Day idea?