Just got an e-mail from the wife of a good friend of mine. Andy and I have been friends since Junior High (what they now call Middle School), but since his job (computer programmer) took him out west (CA, then relocated to OK), we've lost touch. We send each other e-mails now and again, usually trumpeting a family triumph or lamenting a lost pet.
I just got word that he has liver cancer, the same kind as in long-term alcoholics (which he is not). The official diagnosis is "Well-Differentiated Hepatocellular Carcinoma".
Sonofabitch. We are too young to be losing our peers.
G-dspeed, Andy. If anyone can beat this, you can.
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Liver cancer is a nasty one; a lot of the time by the time it is diagnosed, it is too late to do anything. Hope they caught it early. I've lost a three friends from it. The interesting thing is that they all three served a tour in Vietnam and all three were exposed to Agent Orange. It might be your friend has had exposure to something toxic at some time.
good luck to your friend, Jay. And yes, I'm also too young to be losing contemporaries... lost one last year to a massive stroke, and in May, a girl I dated while we were teenagers died from a sudden aneurysm... Karen was TWO DAYS younger than I am.
Talk about a sucker punch to the gut.
Prayers going out for him. I'm so sorry.
Bob,
I haven't hung around with Andy since 2000, so it is possible that he's been working with dangerous materials. However, he's a computer programmer - not exactly a hotbed of toxic materials (well, there's the mercury in the monitors...)
ross,
Sadly, I've lost plenty of friends already - four to suicide (the youngest at age 12), numerous others to car accidents (mostly DWI not of their own design).
One friend from college was an epileptic who had a seizure in the shower. He fell, hit his head on the tub, and died. When we got the news (he was a friend of my wife's as well), it was another shock to the system.
Teresa,
Thanks. Andy will take all the prayers he can get.
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