One of my best friends from residency died of inflammatory breast cancer this morning. She was diagnosed in March of 2005 and was treated very aggressively, which led to her having a very good year and a half after her diagnosis before things started to go downhill. During her treatment, her family was displaced due to Katrina (her husband is a Gyn-Onc guy with the Army and they were stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi at the time Katrina hit) and she and the kids actually lived with friends in St. Louis (her husband had done his fellowship there) while she continued radiation and chemo.....her husband was sent to Ft. Leonard Wood in MO to do general OB while the military powers decided what to do with all of the medical personnel who had been at Keesler. They eventually relocated to Hawaii, where she died. She and her husband were able to renew their wedding vows on the beach last June, with their two kids standing by.

I met Mary when we moved to San Antonio to start residency. Her husband was a third year in the same program as DH, and our sons were 8 days apart in age. She hosted a party at her apartment for all of the incoming and current spouses in the program, and I went, knowing no one and more than a little nervous. I got there and met a *beautiful* lady who was dressed to the nines, listening to salsa music, and cooking up a storm in her tiny kitchen. Her kids (she also had a daughter) were 2 and 1 and were running around like maniacs. I ended up spending most of the evening laughing (in a nice way!) at the way this woman was having a party while her kids were running amok, and it will probably surprise no one here that I ended up watching the kids. At the end of the night, as I was saying goodbye, she said, "Did you seriously take care of my kids the whole night?" as if she had no idea, and then we both just busted out laughing. We were friends from that point on. She was always the one in our residency program to throw parties, for any reason or no reason at all. She threw me a baby shower when I had my second son. She started a spouses' program for us. She was committed to finding fun, no matter what her circumstances. At the end of the year banquet each year, she would wear a formal gown and go all out.....and she looked like a princess. Sometimes people would look at her (if they didn't know her well) and say she was fake because of that, but her motto was that it was a night out with her husband (who was quite the workaholic at the time, let me tell you) and she was going to make the most of it.

When her husband finished residency, he was sent to Ft. Campbell to do general OB while he waited for a gyn-onc fellowship slot to open up. I visited them there in their new house.....they went from a tiny apartment to a great big house. They were still in the process of moving in when I saw them, but as soon as Mary saw my car in the driveway, she came running out of her house with tears in her eyes, so glad to see me and my two little boys. I will never forget the next morning....I had to get on the road pretty early, and they were still asleep when I went in their room to say goodbye. Her kids were still freaked out by the "big house", and in the night, they had both ended up in bed with their parents. So when I went in there, there they all were, all four of them, wrapped up together on a mattress in the middle of the floor, sleeping peacefully. It was such a sweet picture, and I will never forget it.

My family stayed with Mary again when they were living in St. Louis for her DH's fellowship, and she was her usual self, cooking a huge delicious dinner for us as several neighborhood children she had befriended ran through her house. We also attended a military medical meeting in Hawaii, and their family was there, too. We spent a ton of time with them, and even rented a convertible and toured the island together on one of the days. Mary was in her element there, and I am so glad she was able to spend her final days in a place where she was so happy.

She was always one to live in the moment, and she didn't waste too much time thinking things through, which she sometimes regretted. However, she lived life to the fullest and did her best to make sure that whenever she left this earth, she would have no regrets. She and I talked just after her diagnosis, and it was clear from the beginning that she would not survive. We talked just like we always had, a mile a minute with lots of laughter, and all of the sudden she said "So, do you know?" and I said "Yeah, I heard." She said "Are you okay?" (which makes me cry to type....) and I said "Are you?" She said it was hard, but she was going to fight as hard as she could for as much time as she could get. And she did. She had so much chemo and radiation following her surgeries that at one point, her doctors thought the cancer had gone to her brain, because she was confused, but it was just the effects of the treatment. I talked to her once more, right before they moved to Hawaii. This was when she was still having issues due to the treatment, and the conversation was more disjointed, but at the end of the conversation she said, "Chica, you know I love you, right?" I told her I knew, and that I loved her too. I think we both knew that we were having our last conversation. She spent the rest of her life getting her family settled in Hawaii. She made memories with her husband and kids, and cashed in her life insurance and bought them a house so that they would have a "home" where they could remember her.....a novel thing for a military family. The Army has promised her DH that he can stay at Tripler, where he is stationed, for as long as he wants in order to provide stability for the kids.

If you have taken the time to read this far, thank you. She was a very special person to me and it means a lot to me to be able to share my memories of her with all of you. She was the eptiome of a medical spouse to me.

Go in peace, sweet Mary.[/QUOTE]