My friend has cancer. She is thirty.

She has been my friend for almost 9 years. Her husband is one of my oldest college friends, and he visited me this afternoon.

He told me he had some "not great" news. Then he clarified "It's bad news".

She has breast cancer.

But...but...

She told me to tell you not to worry about her.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT HER? IF MY HUSBAND TOLD HER THAT I HAD CANCER SHE WOULD WORRY ABOUT ME!

I know.

Early stages, right? They can just remove it? Right?

No. It's spread very quickly. They can't just take it out.

What...what...what...

The doctors were very surprised, because there's no history in her family.

But...she didn't grow up in one of those...cluster...places.

No. The cancer rates where she grew up aren't any higher than in the rest of the country.

THIS SUCKS! THIS ROYALLY SUCKS! What...okay. Okay. What are we doing? What are we going to do?

I tried to keep from crying. I didn't succeed. My son was playing on the floor in front of us, and he came over and smiled at me, then rested his soft little head on my knee.

It spread so very fast, because she saw the doctor and had the mammogram immediately after she found the lump. Then she had a biopsy. The doctors have to find out exactly how far the cancer has spread and she will probably have to have chemo, and a mastectomy.

My friends learned this a week ago today.

Even in my head I am afraid to say "what if..."

What if she dies?

You would think, with everything my husband and I have been through, illness in someone my age wouldn't terrify me, but it does. I suppose I thought my husband was the one. I figured it doesn't happen often in people under thirty, some hideous illness that could kill you, so if it happened to us, then our friends will be fine.

My husband didn't die, though.

What if she dies?

It's so strange that I prepared myself for my husband's death to the point where, if it happened, I knew that I would be prostrate with grief, but my life could go on. It was hard to get to that point, and my husband wanted to know that I could be at that point.

I never prepared myself for one of my friends dying.

What will we do if she dies?

What will her husband do if she dies?

I missed their wedding because the friend who was driving me there got lost.

She's so tiny, and her wedding dress had a very full skirt. She looked beautiful, but she had trouble getting out of the door.

She took the photos at my wedding.

I have a photo of her from seven years ago, putting her cousin in a headlock with silly expressions on their faces.

Her cousin looks very much like her younger sister.

Her younger sister got married this past winter.

Her younger sister was in a play I directed, and on the closing night, my friend and her fiancé (my friend) gave me a spinning tin top...because everyone gives flowers.

Oh, God, please please please please don't let her die.