For Iris and Linda

Less than two months ago - I posted about diagnosing a leukemia in a woman who has children is my kids' school. My kids came home today and said that they had shut the life support off and she breathed for one hour on her own and then died.

I fought back tears and asked for a few minutes alone. It just hit me - how quickly it had happened. I knew the diagnosis was not good and I knew she would not lived. She had AML which does not hold any chance of bone marrow transplant or remission...but not even two months? The reality is daunting.

She lived on overdrive. If there was a task to head up - she was there leading it. There are a lot of women like that but Iris had a way of doing it that eliminated any cliques, down to earth, straight to the business at hand, no wasted flowery moments. I appreciated that in her. She was a mother to the nth degree. I was never a good friend - but we exchanged many friendly moments and I respected her.

One day about two months ago, our lives intersected when she arrived in Emergency and a few hours later I spoke to a hematologist to offer my opinion on what I'd seen in the microscope. She arrived that morning one woman and left a completely different one. And yesterday - in the quiet of the morning, with her family around her - she died.

In a bed at the end of one of the wings of the hospital, is Linda. Our lives too held some similarites. She had lost a baby just over a year ago during a traumatic birth and I understood her anguish in ways I wish I didn't. She got pregant soon after losing her baby and had a difficult pregancy with a lot of pain. In the last weeks of pregnancy, they were forced to give her an emergency c-section and while in surgery, they discovered that she had colon cancer.

They have told her she won't beat this. The treatment she is taking will prolong her life slightly but it will not save her. She will never see her baby girl go to kindergarten. She may not even see her baby girl take her first steps. Friends say she stays in the hospital more than she probably has to because she is afraid of dying at home with her children there. She is afraid to go to sleep because she wonders if she will wake up. She has distanced herself from the baby to try and make it a little easier. Her older children miss her at home.

I took her blood the other day and I noticed how terribly skinny she's gotten. Her face was swollen from the steroids but her tiny arm gave me pause. This is not good and I am sad for her. I wish I could do more, be more.

So, for Iris and Linda - God speed. You have impacted people's lives in ways you will never realize because today, this friendly acquaintance has you in her thoughts. Bless your families and bless your homes.