Update:
For those who are not aware yet, Dawn passed away yesterday almost as I was writing this. We wish strength and love to her husband Mike and her boys.
Our family doesn’t get it sometimes. Aaron and I can sit next to each other on the couch and tweet back and forth, giggling. We laugh with friends and they tweet back…it’s a community.
Dawn and Mike have always been around for those late night and middle of the day giggle sessions. They were the Ethel and Fred to our Ricky and Lucy. Or vice versa.
Dawn and I even got sick together. We even started to get better together. Then, not long ago, there was news Mike was taking Dawn to the ER. The next thing we hear there is a surgery and tumors and bleeding and the words inoperable and hospice.
I, of course, had been lost in my world of treatments and swollen ankles and worrying about things that didn’t matter. So when I caught the news it came second-hand and it very literally sucked the breath right out of me.
No. No. These are our buddies. These are the people we joke around with online and knew we’d hang out with on our next trip to Michigan- just as soon as my Doctor said I could travel. No. No. This is not happening.
Aaron and Mike understand what it’s like to be caregivers to women they love. The kids, the jobs, the meals the worry. My god the endless worry. Dawn and I could bitch about pills and surgeries and pain and being stuck in a hospital bed or on a couch. Wanting nothing more than to take the worry away from our Aaron and Mike and, most of all, our kids.
I refuse to give up hope that doctors can find a way to help Dawn. We still have trip to Michigan to make where we all have to go a Tiger’s game and eat Coney Dogs after. Our kids needs to hang out.
But most of all, Dawn and I need some girly couch time. Where we may have to rest, but we’ll rest together.
Mike is asking donations be given to Melanoma Research Foundation so smart people can continue to try to find a way to fight this asshole cancer. There is also another donation drive where the funds are going to help the family with meals, expenses.
I hope beyond hope for a miracle. And in the meantime, follow Dawn’s advice and check your skin. CHECK YOUR SKIN.
This just sucks, all the way around.
Breath sucking, that is the perfect way to explain it.
Loving friends deeply only to see them leave this life too soon, it’s one of the bittersweet parts of this world we’ve entrenched ourselves in.
I have not known them long, but am incredibly blessed to know them at all. I wish you much love and luck and healing in your recovery. My heart is shattered for mike and dawn and the boys.
The amazing thing about Dawn is that she might make noise about wishing she could keep a bite to eat down or just find something enjoyable to nosh on, but she didn’t bitch or moan or complain. She has done an impeccable job of supporting everyone she knows and putting them at ease about her illness—that is her grace. Her grace is exactly what I will miss every day.