I just spoke with another of A.'s friends, who stayed with her last night. A. keeps saying she's dreaming about her mother (her mother died when she was about 6)and I'm hoping that means it's getting close. She isn't entirely lucid but the one thing she keeps saying to all of us is that she wants it to be over with. And again at the risk of sounding heartless, I hope it's over with soon for her. I know she will have it easier the next time around and I want that to come to her as quickly as possible.
I don't even know A. that well - she is a childhood friend of another friend. I've known A. through that friend about 6-7 years. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, I talked with her a lot about how my experience went, etc. but I really didn't see her that often. Her mental illness and the drugs she had to take for that complicated her cancer treatment a lot -- and since she's essentially been off the head drugs the past year, she has been a little bit hard to deal with at times. But, I still cannot fathom the fact that her own family (such as it is) has turned their backs on her. From what little I've seen or heard of them, it seems they have been angry with her over her mental illness (a fact that is so selfish and stupid I have trouble digesting it) and have done jack shit for her over the past 10-15 years. And the fact that she's been so ill and dying has done nothing to soften them. So it's me and two other people taking turns visiting her. The father of one of her other friends is paying for a 'round the clock nurse to sit with her at the hospital so she doesn't have to be alone at all.
Like anyone else, I can be hateful, petty, a bitch, condescending, whatever. But as a human being walking this earth with other human beings, I cannot imagine turning my back on someone when they are in such shape. Let alone a family member. It boggles the mind.