Garfie.. my dear Friend

With our new world of  digital communication, emailing, IM’ng, Facebook..etc. = we’ve all found ways to connect to people we may never meet.  We come together through an array of interests..

I met Garfie when I was new to PSP..at a very popular MSN Group (raven’s).

As the years went by, I found her here and there (GIG Graphics) , and at my own group..we’d mail and have a bit of a chat over this or that..

Then, I formed a forum off  MSN (looong before the plug was pulled..MSN-wise)

She was in the same place (tired of the MSN-bull)  ..she knew I was building my forum and we bonded over creating her CSS (eek) and so many other (new,unfamiliar) headaches of an owned forum!   She asked me for a helping hand with her Invision forum.. ‘Graphics Playroom’.

What was most significant was our ‘click’.  You know..nothing but text/words/email   …yet a strong personal/spiritual connection.  It’s wondrous, really

Years go by..  we mailed and mailed and mailed.. hundreds and hundreds of emails.    We had phone calls.   She was a Brit indulging her life far from the UK..and far from the mainland of Greece, on an island (Rhodes/Rhodos) just miles from the coast of Turkey…with her beloved Cocker Spaniel mother and daughter pair..and assorted cats..and lemon trees.  I am in the USA..  in the Midwest..  indulging my husband and my beloved kitty..  not all too exotic

It made no difference the distance..  we became fast friends who went far beyond PSP..forums, and all that..  we found we were Sisters.

After my hubby, it was Garfie I turned to, when I found I had a sarcoma.

I could speak the unknown to her..the fear and more..she was my guidepost..  she let me hang on to her for whatever I needed and she backslapped me if I got too woeful   She also allowed me not to speak of it, if I simply didn’t want to.  Cancer-talk can be tiresome for everyone…and a burden on friendship.  Happily, we continued on with our sisterhood, mostly..as if nothing changed

She never wavered in her support, tho ..never.  When I’d be getting chemo, I’d check email..and there she would be..holding my hand…  same when I’d be getting a CT scan report  ..there she’d be, cheering me to be a soldier in our army of two Sisters.

Last June 2009, I asked her to do me a favor = to finish my blog when I couldn’t.  She agreed and we let it go = until that unspoken/unknown slit of time would arrive.  Basically?  She would tell you I was gone

A month later, she told me she’d found two lumps at her breast… 

A Greek physician removed them and assured her that they were caught early..he’d send it off to be biopsied and not to worry.  She didn’t.

I did!  She told me of how much weight she’d lost…so much so that she was embarrassed by it.  That was worrisome to me.   It was a full month before the pathology returned, telling her it was, indeed, breast cancer.  Another month went by before she finally arrived in the UK to be treated, if further treatment was necessary, under the NHS.  Thankfully, they still considered her a British citizen.   It was September, 2009  ..and at most, she assumed they’d take more tissue to make sure the cancer was completely resected…as well, she’d have her sentinel lymph node removed for further assurance that the cancer hadn’t spread.  She was not worried, whatsoever.

Immediately, the breast cancer was dismissed, for they found Garfie had a very large tumor in her lung.  Consider a grapefruit for size-reference..

In fact, her lung had collapsed…the tumor had cut off the airway to her lung and had wrapped around her pulmonary artery.   Inoperable.   Radiation was out of the question..the dose would have to be so high, it would kill her.   Chemo was a possibility..but she was very weakened physically..  the chemo was put off.

She soon developed fluid around her heart (pericardial effusion) that needed to be drained immediately.  At that point she was considered critical.  She hated that they took her to another hospital in an ambulance, lights and sirens, the whole shebang.  She thought it was a bit much, as if she didn’t deserve such exclusive transport…but I knew better.  I had googled pericardial effusion as related to Lung Cancer.  Serious, indeed…. it also gave me a grim message = that it was a sign that the cancer was very advanced and signaled the last months/weeks of life

No, I never brought that to her attention.

My friend was very ill with Lung Cancer.  It had not metastasized to her lung from her breast.  She had two Primary cancers..and this one was very serious and well established.   It was there long before she found breast lumps.

I recall telling Garfie in February, that she’d been sick too much.  I pushed her to get better rest and food..and to please see her doctor.  Since October ’08, she seemed to have a continual chest/bronchial thing going on.  Then..around mid-spring..she told me of wrenching back and shoulder pain..and of hearing ‘a mighty crack’.  I have to tell you, it was too familiar to what I experienced just a year earlier (if you’ve read ‘my battle’).  She and I got a little creeped out..but we then blew it off..  no way could she have cancer and have her bones break like mine…  too ironic.

Again, I asked her to see a doctor, this time an orthopedist.. she didn’t ever go to a doctor for her ‘cold’s/infection’..nor for her bone pain.

Now?  I do believe her bones were cracking.  She wasn’t given a bonescan in the UK and had continual pain in her ribs and shoulder. She mentioned it, again, to me just two weeks ago..how painful her bones were.

I think the docs knew as soon as they saw her lung xray and her CT..that she was beyond help.  Why give her all the crappy details of what this cancer had done to her, already.  They also saw that she wouldn’t give up on Hope..so they let her keep Hoping.   That’s my guess.   All through her time in the UK, I was angered and frustrated by how they’d tell her they’d begin chemo..then never follow through.  Looking back, it furthers my belief that they thought they’d compassionately placate her by telling her ‘yes, one day soon’  ..  ‘yes, next week’  ..and so on

Even after they told her she had only weeks left to live, just two weeks ago, she still wanted to try chemo.

Through hospitalizations, terrible pain, tubes into her bronchial passages, needles into her lungs, drainage tubes into her lungs and heart..etc…  she never wavered from the Hope that she could fight this disease.  Just one week ago, she was going to have another chemo assessment done…she was not going to give up nor give in

Three days later, December 17, 2009  .. she died peacefully, serenely in her sleep  ..  just three and one half months after diagnosis

Six months after I asked her to finish my blog,  I told her forum membership that she is gone  ..I never thought our tables would turn in such an awful and ironic way

……….

Garfie was a truly joyful, witty, warm, compassionate, wise, and very brave woman.  To say that I and her friends miss her is an understatement

Having her in my life was a comfort and a genuine pleasure.   To know that she loved me, and that she knew I loved her, is also a treasured comfort for my soul.

Garfie (realname Chris Rumney)  June 14, 1956 – December 17, 2009