You’re Too Old To Think You’re Invincible: The Promise of Tomorrow is a Lie

When the promise of tomorrow becomes the fight for tomorrow

This morning an email inviting me to join a website called Caringbridge showed up. I almost deleted it except that the name of a friend was involved, and it was her email. Not a sales pitch.

Turns out that my friend recently got diagnosed with Stage Four ovarian cancer. Tumors have spread. While she’s largely symptomatic, she is facing chemo and a long road ahead.

She may make it. She may not. Even with the best of care the survival rates are 30–31%.

She’s got a little money. A big house in a beautiful part of California. Lots of friends. A good job. However what she’s got externally isn’t going to fix what’s going on internally, albeit the friends and community will most assuredly help.

But not cure.

I’d stepped back from this friendship a few months ago when an exchange got heated from her side, and to my mind, unnecessarily caustic. We’d been speaking regularly, and I needed a break.

In the interim, a sharp pain at her waist led to this devastating diagnosis.

My sadness about this is the sudden change of all options at a time when she was…