An Update on Suzanne's Battle with Cancer

Sunstone said:

As some of you might remember, I posted a thread a few months ago about a friend of mine -- a young mother of two boys -- who had unpredictably come down with throat cancer.

She didn't smoke, she didn't drink much beyond the occasional glass of wine, and she had more or less lived a healthy lifestyle, but nevertheless she was afflicted by throat cancer.

Although she was working two jobs at the time she got the news, due to her very limited means she was forced to start a GoFundMe campaign in order to cover her expenses until a Nevada State program for cancer victims could kick in.

In response to my post about her, several RFers donated generously to her campaign, a fact that allowed her to start cancer treatments immediately, rather than delaying their start by two or three months. Others who could not donate money, spread the word about her on their social media accounts.

A few days ago, the day before Christmas Eve, Suzanne's doctors declared her "cancer free".

I am so grateful to those of you who helped her get an early start on her treatments. Your support was vital, and I thought you'd like to know how much it helped. Thank you so much! I will never forget how much you did for her.

Click to expand...

Duke_Leto said:

As heartening as this is, I wish it weren’t necessary to seek donations from strangers to cover medical costs in the first place.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

The story of how Suzanne and I met is so unusual, so out of the ordinary -- and I might even say, so eerie -- that I think it could be of general interest on a religious forum.

It begins more than 25 years ago when I owned and operated a tiny little business in Illinois employing 13 people. To make this brief, I won't go into the details of how one day I found myself shuffling through Victoria's Secrets catalogs on a business mission to find flannel pajama prices -- but it happened that one day I found myself doing just that.

I was thumbing through the pages quite rapidly when I felt stopped in my tracks. What had I just seen? I thumbed back two or three pages. There, posed on a bed, was a young model in her underwear looking straight at the camera.

Any other time in my life, I would have been more likely to fixate on her underwear than on her eyes. But it was clearly the eyes that I'd noticed, and that had caused me to thumb back to her.

She had an arresting look in her eyes. I thought it might even be familiar in some way, but I couldn't place where I might have seen it before. I was all but hypnotized looking at that expression. I felt a huge desire to meet her, and then an ache in my chest when I realized I never would. I remember thinking, "I just want to meet her so I can find out what that look in her eyes is all about." I thought it almost like a prayer, even though I was a non-theist.

A few minutes went by and I finally noticed, down in a bottom corner of the page, the same model in flannel pajamas. That woke me up, the spell was broken. I jotted down the price and other pajama information, and then started thumbing through the catalog again.

Fast forward a couple years. I've closed down my business, left my wife, and -- finding myself without any ties or obligations left in the world -- decided to move to Colorado. In Colorado, I have become a regular at a certain coffee shop a city block from my apartment that happens to be the most popular coffee shop in town. The customers most nights are so many they can't all fit inside, and the crowd overflows onto the sidewalks.

One night, I'm standing on the sidewalk with the overflow crowd when I'm a bit alarmed to spot a tiny white sports car with its top down swoop into a parking space at such speed that I think for a moment it's about to crash into the car parked in front. Nevertheless it comes to a halt in time -- just barely in time, though.

The driver -- instead of opening the door -- stands up in his seat and leaps over the door onto the ground. "Cocky", I think. The moment he reaches the sidewalk, he turns in my direction, and begins strutting towards me. "What a cocky strut!", I think. Then -- twenty feet away -- I am able to see his face well enough in the night to realize he is a she.

Moreover, not just a she, but the she. The underwear model from the catalog.

You might expect that I'd be a bit shocked. But I wasn't. Long story short, this was to me just another one of a whole series of very strange events that were happening to me on almost a monthly basis back in those days. My attitude that night was far closer to "Again? Another one?" than it was to shock.

She strutted right up to me, looking neither to the left nor the right. When she at last came to a halt right in front of me, she looked up into my eyes and said, somewhat cryptically, "So this is the place for coffee?" I told her where to look inside the shop for the service counter (there were so many people inside, it was a bit difficult to spot).

Off she went.

I had just begun to think that I'd never see her again, when she popped back out of the store with a cup and a pitcher. Again she came up to me, and we got into a conversation that lasted perhaps 30 or 45 minutes, and during which I avoided mentioning anything about having seen her photos in Victoria's Secrets.

Within a few months Suzanne and I had become platonic friends, and we were hanging out together for a few hours in the evening nearly every day of each week. We did all sorts of things from taking road trips in her sports car, to attending movies, to shopping, to soaking nude in hot springs, to midnight mountain hikes, and more -- but we never became romantically involved with each other.

She was 16 that year. I was 39 or 40. She had posed for the catalog when she was 14 at her mother's insistence -- yet both in person and in her photos, she looked like a 19 year old.

About six months after we met, I finally got around to telling her where I'd seen her before. Her response: "You're the sixth man I've met who saw my photos in Victoria's, but you're the only one who remembers the flannel pajamas."

And the look in her eyes? I have come to believe that peculiar look might be associated in some people (but not in everyone) with certain mood disorders. Suzanne, as it turned out was bi-polar. A few other people I've since come to know have the same look, and the same illness, or a closely related illness.

I have absolutely no explanation for any of the strange things that happened between Suzanne and me beyond calling them "coincidences". But I've always thought the events that happened with her, were the least strange of all the strange events that happened back in those days.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

The story of how Suzanne and I met is so unusual, so out of the ordinary -- and I might even say, so eerie -- that I think it could be of general interest on a religious forum.

It begins more than 25 years ago when I owned and operated a tiny little business in Illinois employing 13 people. To make this brief, I won't go into the details of how one day I found myself shuffling through Victoria's Secrets catalogs on a business mission to find flannel pajama prices -- but it happened that one day I found myself doing just that.

I was thumbing through the pages quite rapidly when I felt stopped in my tracks. What had I just seen? I thumbed back two or three pages. There, posed on a bed, was a young model in her underwear looking straight at the camera.

Any other time in my life, I would have been more likely to fixate on her underwear than on her eyes. But it was clearly the eyes that I'd noticed, and that had caused me to thumb back to her.

She had an arresting look in her eyes. I thought it might even be familiar in some way, but I couldn't place where I might have seen it before. I was all but hypnotized looking at that expression. I felt a huge desire to meet her, and then an ache in my chest when I realized I never would. I remember thinking, "I just want to meet her so I can find out what that look in her eyes is all about." I thought it almost like a prayer, even though I was a non-theist.

A few minutes went by and I finally noticed, down in a bottom corner of the page, the same model in flannel pajamas. That woke me up, the spell was broken. I jotted down the price and other pajama information, and then started thumbing through the catalog again.

Fast forward a couple years. I've closed down my business, left my wife, and -- finding myself without any ties or obligations left in the world -- decided to move to Colorado. In Colorado, I have become a regular at a certain coffee shop a city block from my apartment that happens to be the most popular coffee shop in town. The customers most nights are so many they can't all fit inside, and the crowd overflows onto the sidewalks.

One night, I'm standing on the sidewalk with the overflow crowd when I'm a bit alarmed to spot a tiny white sports car with its top down swoop into a parking space at such speed that I think for a moment it's about to crash into the car parked in front. Nevertheless it comes to a halt in time -- just barely in time, though.

The driver -- instead of opening the door -- stands up in his seat and leaps over the door onto the ground. "Cocky", I think. The moment he reaches the sidewalk, he turns in my direction, and begins strutting towards me. "What a cocky strut!", I think. Then -- twenty feet away -- I am able to see his face well enough in the night to realize he is a she.

Moreover, not just a she, but the she. The underwear model from the catalog.

You might expect that I'd be a bit shocked. But I wasn't. Long story short, this was to me just another one of a whole series of very strange events that were happening to me on almost a monthly basis back in those days. My attitude that night was far closer to "Again? Another one?" than it was to shock.

She strutted right up to me, looking neither to the left nor the right. When she at last came to a halt right in front of me, she looked up into my eyes and said, somewhat cryptically, "So this is the place for coffee?" I told her where to look inside the shop for the service counter (there were so many people inside, it was a bit difficult to spot).

Off she went.

I had just begun to think that I'd never see her again, when she popped back out of the store with a cup and a pitcher. Again she came up to me, and we got into a conversation that lasted perhaps 30 or 45 minutes, and during which I avoided mentioning anything about having seen her photos in Victoria's Secrets.

Within a few months Suzanne and I had become platonic friends, and we were hanging out together for a few hours in the evening nearly every day of each week. We did all sorts of things from taking road trips in her sports car, to attending movies, to shopping, to soaking nude in hot springs, to midnight mountain hikes, and more -- but we never became romantically involved with each other.

She was 16 that year. I was 39 or 40. She had posed for the catalog when she was 14 at her mother's insistence -- yet both in person and in her photos, she looked like a 19 year old.

About six months after we met, I finally got around to telling her where I'd seen her before. Her response: "You're the sixth man I've met who saw my photos in Victoria's, but you're the only one who remembers the flannel pajamas."

And the look in her eyes? I have come to believe that peculiar look might be associated in some people (but not in everyone) with certain mood disorders. Suzanne, as it turned out was bi-polar. A few other people I've since come to know have the same look, and the same illness, or a closely related illness.

I have absolutely no explanation for any of the strange things that happened between Suzanne and me beyond calling them "coincidences". But I've always thought the events that happened with her, were the least strange of all the strange events that happened back in those days.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

As some of you might remember, I posted a thread a few months ago about a friend of mine -- a young mother of two boys -- who had unpredictably come down with throat cancer.

She didn't smoke, she didn't drink much beyond the occasional glass of wine, and she had more or less lived a healthy lifestyle, but nevertheless she was afflicted by throat cancer.

Although she was working two jobs at the time she got the news, due to her very limited means she was forced to start a GoFundMe campaign in order to cover her expenses until a Nevada State program for cancer victims could kick in.

In response to my post about her, several RFers donated generously to her campaign, a fact that allowed her to start cancer treatments immediately, rather than delaying their start by two or three months. Others who could not donate money, spread the word about her on their social media accounts.

A few days ago, the day before Christmas Eve, Suzanne's doctors declared her "cancer free".

I am so grateful to those of you who helped her get an early start on her treatments. Your support was vital, and I thought you'd like to know how much it helped. Thank you so much! I will never forget how much you did for her.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

As some of you might remember, I posted a thread a few months ago about a friend of mine -- a young mother of two boys -- who had unpredictably come down with throat cancer.

She didn't smoke, she didn't drink much beyond the occasional glass of wine, and she had more or less lived a healthy lifestyle, but nevertheless she was afflicted by throat cancer.

Although she was working two jobs at the time she got the news, due to her very limited means she was forced to start a GoFundMe campaign in order to cover her expenses until a Nevada State program for cancer victims could kick in.

In response to my post about her, several RFers donated generously to her campaign, a fact that allowed her to start cancer treatments immediately, rather than delaying their start by two or three months. Others who could not donate money, spread the word about her on their social media accounts.

A few days ago, the day before Christmas Eve, Suzanne's doctors declared her "cancer free".

I am so grateful to those of you who helped her get an early start on her treatments. Your support was vital, and I thought you'd like to know how much it helped. Thank you so much! I will never forget how much you did for her.

Click to expand...

Sunstone said:

The story of how Suzanne and I met is so unusual, so out of the ordinary -- and I might even say, so eerie -- that I think it could be of general interest on a religious forum.

It begins more than 25 years ago when I owned and operated a tiny little business in Illinois employing 13 people. To make this brief, I won't go into the details of how one day I found myself shuffling through Victoria's Secrets catalogs on a business mission to find flannel pajama prices -- but it happened that one day I found myself doing just that.

I was thumbing through the pages quite rapidly when I felt stopped in my tracks. What had I just seen? I thumbed back two or three pages. There, posed on a bed, was a young model in her underwear looking straight at the camera.

Any other time in my life, I would have been more likely to fixate on her underwear than on her eyes. But it was clearly the eyes that I'd noticed, and that had caused me to thumb back to her.

She had an arresting look in her eyes. I thought it might even be familiar in some way, but I couldn't place where I might have seen it before. I was all but hypnotized looking at that expression. I felt a huge desire to meet her, and then an ache in my chest when I realized I never would. I remember thinking, "I just want to meet her so I can find out what that look in her eyes is all about." I thought it almost like a prayer, even though I was a non-theist.

A few minutes went by and I finally noticed, down in a bottom corner of the page, the same model in flannel pajamas. That woke me up, the spell was broken. I jotted down the price and other pajama information, and then started thumbing through the catalog again.

Fast forward a couple years. I've closed down my business, left my wife, and -- finding myself without any ties or obligations left in the world -- decided to move to Colorado. In Colorado, I have become a regular at a certain coffee shop a city block from my apartment that happens to be the most popular coffee shop in town. The customers most nights are so many they can't all fit inside, and the crowd overflows onto the sidewalks.

One night, I'm standing on the sidewalk with the overflow crowd when I'm a bit alarmed to spot a tiny white sports car with its top down swoop into a parking space at such speed that I think for a moment it's about to crash into the car parked in front. Nevertheless it comes to a halt in time -- just barely in time, though.

The driver -- instead of opening the door -- stands up in his seat and leaps over the door onto the ground. "Cocky", I think. The moment he reaches the sidewalk, he turns in my direction, and begins strutting towards me. "What a cocky strut!", I think. Then -- twenty feet away -- I am able to see his face well enough in the night to realize he is a she.

Moreover, not just a she, but the she. The underwear model from the catalog.

You might expect that I'd be a bit shocked. But I wasn't. Long story short, this was to me just another one of a whole series of very strange events that were happening to me on almost a monthly basis back in those days. My attitude that night was far closer to "Again? Another one?" than it was to shock.

She strutted right up to me, looking neither to the left nor the right. When she at last came to a halt right in front of me, she looked up into my eyes and said, somewhat cryptically, "So this is the place for coffee?" I told her where to look inside the shop for the service counter (there were so many people inside, it was a bit difficult to spot).

Off she went.

I had just begun to think that I'd never see her again, when she popped back out of the store with a cup and a pitcher. Again she came up to me, and we got into a conversation that lasted perhaps 30 or 45 minutes, and during which I avoided mentioning anything about having seen her photos in Victoria's Secrets.

Within a few months Suzanne and I had become platonic friends, and we were hanging out together for a few hours in the evening nearly every day of each week. We did all sorts of things from taking road trips in her sports car, to attending movies, to shopping, to soaking nude in hot springs, to midnight mountain hikes, and more -- but we never became romantically involved with each other.

She was 16 that year. I was 39 or 40. She had posed for the catalog when she was 14 at her mother's insistence -- yet both in person and in her photos, she looked like a 19 year old.

About six months after we met, I finally got around to telling her where I'd seen her before. Her response: "You're the sixth man I've met who saw my photos in Victoria's, but you're the only one who remembers the flannel pajamas."

And the look in her eyes? I have come to believe that peculiar look might be associated in some people (but not in everyone) with certain mood disorders. Suzanne, as it turned out was bi-polar. A few other people I've since come to know have the same look, and the same illness, or a closely related illness.

I have absolutely no explanation for any of the strange things that happened between Suzanne and me beyond calling them "coincidences". But I've always thought the events that happened with her, were the least strange of all the strange events that happened back in those days.

Click to expand...

FlyingTeaPot said:

I am so happy for her, @Sunstone! Happy holidays!

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Polymath257 said:

That just brought a tear to my eye (seriously).

Good for her!

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Terese said:

I'm very happy for her! Such a wonderful thing to hear before Christmas. I bet she was cheerfully enjoying the holiday relatively stress free

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Stanyon said:

I've lost five so far to different forms of cancer, one being a family member so it's good to hear when someone beats it especially someone that has young kids and is just trying to get by.

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Duke_Leto said:

As heartening as this is, I wish it weren’t necessary to seek donations from strangers to cover medical costs in the first place.

Click to expand...