There is a hole in my heart - Part 4

Susan was not so lucky.

I found Susan Neibur's blog during a time when I was frantically looking for women that had the same symptoms I had and turned out to be fine. There are a surprising few of us. I found only one other blog where a woman was pregnant with symptoms like mine and it turned out to be benign.

It became apparent to me that this kind of cancer was a special kind of awful. It attacked young as well as old women. The amount of women I found that had actually been diagnosed while pregnant was repugnant and awful. To think that the most beautiful thing a woman can do is overshadowed by the need to survive. The need to pump toxic chemicals into your body just so you can see your children grown. In these cases, however, these women put themselves through everything from radiation to chemotherapy to stem cell transplant. It wasn't even to cure the cancer. It was a fight to add years to their life. To be able to enjoy one more year with their children.

I was floored. I kept coming across women who had started blogs to document their progress only to find them half finished and empty as one by one these women lost their fight with cancer. In an ironic twist, this kind of cancer seemed more aggressive with younger women.

In my pregnancy driven hormone induced craze, I cried for these women. These women I never knew. Their blogs left unfinished like a book half written. Like ghosts in the internet.

Susan was the golden light of everything that was true, heroic, strong, and intelligent. Her blog was filled with hope. I have a hard time explaining what is was I liked so much about her. She lived life. She shoved memories in wherever she could. She knew each and every day that medicine gave her was not to be wasted. Her blog is essentially a love letter to her husband and boys.

Susan used her blog as a way to reach out to people to gain the support she needed while providing love and support to others. When it became apparent that she was losing her battle, the thousands of followers she had, stood by like a virtual shield at her bedside. Up until the very last blog, she showed hope, courage and a need to survive. Just one more day. Just one more.

Three or four times a day I would go back to her blog to see if she had updated. I thought about her constantly. Then came the final entry labeled "goodbye." I immediately started to cry. I had never met this woman but in a strange way, she has left a very large hole in my heart.

The world has been deprived of a wonderful human being and it makes me angry. So angry.

Educate yourself. Educate others. Don't shy away from what is frightening and depressing.

Hey Cancer, we are coming for you and we won't stop.

"No princess fights alone."

Goodbye Susan. We will never forget.