Losing a friend

My friend Kay is dying. Over the past 2 months she has not been feeling well, they thought she had pneumonia, turns out it was blood clots in her lungs. That started the the trouble in February, right around the time of the Superbowl. Over the past 6 weeks she has been in and out of the hospital. 2 weeks ago they discovered a mass in her abdomen. After a few biopsy's of the mass, it was discovered it was cancer. A few days after that they discovered it was sarcoma. (Sarcoma is a nasty, fast moving, aggressive cancer that tends to not respond to any chemo or radiation). They went in to remove the mass and found that the cancer was quite widespread in her abdomen. She had her surgery last Thursday. They were hoping she would recover quick and therefore possibly have a few months left before the sarcoma came back. However, she has not had the recovery expected. They were going to be admitting her into hospice today. She has gone from possibly a few months to live, to a few days.

I found out all this news last night. I knew she had been in and out of the hospital, but I also know how private of a person Kay is, so didn't push her when she didn't respond to me. However, since she has found out it is cancer (2 weeks ago) she is finally allowing visitors. So, after speaking with her husband on the phone last night, I knew I needed to go to the hospital today. I took the girls to the office to hang out with Daddy and others while I went to see her. When I arrived, the doctors were doing rounds. She is in the Critical Care Unit (CCU) so when doctors do rounds, everyone gets kicked out. So, I met her husband and sister in the lobby and we had to wait in the waiting room until rounds were over.

She is on morphine, but I was surprised that once I saw her, she immediately asked me how Courtney is. I also told her that Kasey turns 1 next week, and she remembered. I only stayed with her about 5 minutes. She is sleepy (from the morphine no doubt) and there were other friends arriving to see her. I just had to go see her to tell her how much I love her.

Kay came into our life when Courtney was 4 months old. Kay was Courtney's day care person at her first day care. Kay and her sidekick Nancy are the most amazing people in the world. They are so good at what they do. I never worried about Courtney when she was in their care. The best thing was that I felt that they loved Courtney as if she was family, as they did with all their kids. Kay doesn't have kids of her own, but she really loved caring for everyone else's kids. As my friend said last night, "she is gifted and amazing at what she does". She is in the perfect job for her.

Kay and I connected beyond day care. We both LOVE Bon Jovi, in fact she went to the 3rd Bon Jovi concert I went to with me, she drove. She came to Courtney's first birthday party, and a New Year's Eve party too. She came to see me in the hospital when Kasey was born and a few weeks later too. We often emailed or chatted on Facebook. I invited her to Courtney's 2nd and 3rd birthday parties as well, but she wasn't able to make them.

Kay loves the color purple and she loves the drink Tab (remember that drink?). I made her a purple quilt that had a few Tab squares in it for her a few years back, to thank her for all she does. She also loves Cajun cooking, being that she is from Mississippi.

She is just that fun, loving personality. She just oozes love. I never saw Kay mad, or heard her speak a bad word of anyone. I was really hoping that Kasey would get to know her. It was a hard decision to stay home and not put Kasey up with Kay, but had I gone back to work that is exactly where Kasey would have gone.

I am sad that Kay is dying so suddenly and so fast. I am going to miss her so much. I am still so shell shocked from all this. I am happy that I got to see her today. I hope it wasn't the last time, but we just don't know. I really just hope she knows how loved she it. Not just by me, but by all the kids and parents lives she has touched.