b3 b0rn.. c0nf0rm, b3 si|3nt .. di3

It was a surprising start to the week.

I just came back from my brief sojourn to Guoman – we were celebrating both hubby dearest’s birthday and our anniversary – when a bombshell was dropped on me on Tuesday morning by my project mate. A colleague who was also an old friend (we went to the same boarding school) was suspected to have leukemia . To say I was surprised was an understatement. I was totally flabbergasted.

We are talking about a lady that I knew from when we were still wet behind our ears. I remembered that we were exceptionally close when we were 14 – we were in the same class until our third year at college.

By Wednesday afternoon, the suspicions were proved to be true. I had wanted to visit her at the hospital but decided to give her a call first.

The conversation was awkward to say the least – here I have a once-best-buddies-now-long-time-friend who has just been diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease. What do you say in this type of situation?

I decided to just jump into it and asked her how she was holding up. She explained that she has been diagnosed with acute leukemia – I didn’t find out the significance of this until I checked it out – and that visiting after she starts her treatment may not be possible as they would want to reduce risk of contracting any contagious diseases.

I responded with a lot of ‘Ohs’ and ‘Ahs’ but few encouraging words as I myself was going through a hard time accepting the fact that a friend has this disease that used to be the stuff of movies and mostly newspaper articles and charity run genre.

When we ended the conversation, I oddly felt a bit better hearing the actual situation directly from her. And I was encouraged by her last remark, “Well, see you when I get well again”

I have only one wish for her – which would be what the rest of us would be wishing for – that she can be treated back to health.