Remembering A Friend

Laura lived in Nova Scotia, Canada. I met her in 1989 while we were both students at the same college. She was a very religious person but knew how to have good, clean fun. She was always organizing my friends and I to do something, paintball, bowling, a movie night, whatever. She just loved anything that got us all together. After she graduated she got a job working out West and we had a big going away party for her. It was so much fun, we played Twister, and my memories of that evening will live forever.

At Christmas 1993, she came home for a visit. She didn't feel good though, and I took her to see her doctor. He sent her to the hospital right away for blood tests. I remember they had a wheelchair waiting for her and they brought her upstairs for a special blood collection. Later that evening, as she and I were looking at photos she'd taken out West, her Doctor called and told her she had a nasty blood disease. He told her she had to go to Hospital next morning. I saw her off, and she did not come back that night, not for a long time actually.

She was diagnosed with severe, acute leukemia, and she was kept in hospital for radiation and chemotherapy. It was terrible what these treatments did to her. Her hair fell out, she had seizures, her blood vessels burst, but if it would save her it had to be done. Finally, they decided to do a bone marrow transplant and she was sent out to British Columbia, where they had a bone marrow match.

After the transplant we were all hopeful, we thought she would be OK and come home again. She did come home, in Sept. of 1994, but, as we all found out later, she had only come home to die. She knew she was dying and wanted to be home in the Maritimes, with her family and friends. We lost her two weeks later, she was only 23. I miss her still and will remember her always.



To donate a sample of your bone marrow, please visit http://onematch.ca/ to learn more about registering your bone marrow (in Canada) or visit the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide site http://www.bmdw.org/