TheBanyanTree: (no subject)

[Monique Colver]

Some of you may know Stewart Young. Some of you may know of him. Some of you
may know that Stew battled years of mental illness and has achieved a level
of stability. He lives with his parents. He has an office space that he was
going to every day, a private space where he can work on getting back to
himself and become productive again. Of course we've remained friends, all
of us. Me and Stew and Andrew, my husband. Two years ago Stew drove up to
Washington from California to help us move. Last year, he drove up to house
and dogsit for us for almost a week. 

But he's been sick for months, and a diagnosis was slow in coming. He
couldn't keep food down. It kept getting worse, and doctors diagnosed
gastroparesis. They tried meds, but that was ineffective. One of them, the
one that they thought would be the most effective, is not yet allowed in the
US, and had to be obtained from Canada. For a day or two it seemed to help,
then he had a severe reaction that resulted in even more vomiting. More
tests. More doctors. Still nothing worked, and each day he would eat a small
amount of food, then lay down because that seemed to help, then he'd vomit
it up anyway. Then try it over again. The doctors said that was all they
could do. Then he couldn't even keep down his meds. His anti-psychotics. His
anti-depressants. Things like that. He had to cancel on his best friend's
bachelor party, which was to be held in Reno. It was switched from Las Vegas
to Reno specifically because Stew wasn't up to getting himself all the way
to Las Vegas, but Reno was doable. Or it had been, before the vomiting
become a constant condition, several times a day, every day. That was the
wedding he'd been thinking of, when he apologized for not coming to ours.

A week and a half ago he was so sick that an ambulance was called. I could
tell he wasn't doing well - in an IM to me that morning he apologized for
not being able to come to my wedding this month. The wedding was in May, and
he was there. He went to one hospital, then another, where he's been ever
since. His veins were starting to collapse. He was pretty sick, but he's
been getting better, he's even started keeping food down the past few days.
They finally did a liver biopsy and a colonoscopy, two tests they hadn't
done yet. And Saturday morning they told him, right after his colonoscopy,
that he has a colon tumor, that he has cancer. 

Doesn't that just suck? 

Cancer. What a word. When I called him yesterday, which I do every day since
he's been in the hospital (normally we keep in touch pretty much daily with
IM), and he said, "I have cancer," I said, "You do not!" because I didn't
believe him. Who would believe such a thing? That, and he's known to pop out
with outrageous comments just for a laugh. 

But he does. Stew has cancer. And it being Saturday, that's all they'd tell
him. "Monday," they said, "the doctor and the oncologist will talk to you
about your options. Radiation, chemo, surgery." 

So there it is. Cancer. It's everywhere these days, isn't it? 

He joked about losing his hair - it's a joke because he doesn't have much
hair left to lose. He sounds so tired some times, and other times he sounds
really good. He's been doing well at staying positive. He's made so much
progress with his mental illness. 

I'm certain they'll fix this, and he'll be fine. He'll have survived severe
mental illness, and he will survive this. 

If you'd like to give him your support, a card or something, let me know. 

Monique