My friend has cancer?

What does one say or do when a close friend is diagnosed with cancer? I got a text message from an old college friend. She said one of the girls in the gang just went through a mastectomy. True to her quiet, unassuming nature, this particular friend went through the procedure without telling any of us.Had it not been for a friend of a friend, we wouldn't have known about the operation.

Once a upon a time, about twenty odd years ago we were a tight-knit group of 18-year olds enrolled in pre-med vying to be the next doctors of the land. We were inseparable bonded not only by our dreams and our course cards but also because we had common interests. We all dealt with stress of college life by laughing at each other's jokes, and spending our parent's money watching movies at Harrison Plaza, playing Where in the "World is Carmen San Diego?" in the computer store across our campus and eating in restaurants that stretched our meager allowance. Once, we ate in this Chinese restaurant in Roxas Boulevard. For the life of me, I do not remember how we convinced ourselves to eat and order up a storm knowing the limitation of our individual budgets. We ended up counting pennies (literally) just to pay the bill. It was such an embarrassing moment especially when the other patrons of the restaurant saw us emptying our wallets of coins to pay up a visibly annoyed and impatient waiter. We went through crises big and small. Crushes, annoyances, intrigues, back bites, snub fests and the like but we managed to grow and accept each other's idiosyncrasies and grew up together. Through the course of finding our individual selves some, like me, found out that my calling was not in medicine but in arts and communications. I left the circle and charted a different course. Most of them remained on track and enriched their lives further in medical school, residency, love, marriage, and career specialties. Through it all we remained in touch. And as we evolved from building our careers to building relationships and families we kept in touch knowing that our bond of twenty-years or so will always keep us at arms reach for hugs and understanding.

The suddeness of cancer makes me think about these things. The randomness of who it chooses to afflict scares the hell out of me. She was one of the prettiest, humble, the most unassuming of us. I pray and hope for the best.