Everyone kept telling us how the story of Juliet's cancer, her fight to live, her recovery, our adopting Abby and all the rest would make a great screenplay.  Juliet tried to write about it several times.  The first time was back in 1991, just two days after she got home from the hospital after the initial operation:
The story of my cancer



That's a voodoo doll Juliet bought in New Orleans when we went there for a vacation in 1992. We were told that if you wrote your wish so many times and pinned it to the doll, then the doll would look out for you.  "What the hell?"  Jules thought.

Years later, after we had adopted Abby and after the cancer had returned, Juliet tried again to write down the story of her battle with the cancer.  Unfortunately, she didn't get much farther than she did the first time:

My Cancer Story, take 2


Our friends, Alison and Ralph, made these cards for Juliet to hand out. I don't think she ever really did. However, it amused her to think of the folks to whom she wanted to hand one... for instance, anyone complaining about getting another year older on their birthday.

What happened when the cancer came back can best be told by sharing with you some of the newsletters I sent out to our families and friends. The first four are from 1992 and early 1993 when the cancer first came back and Juliet had her chemo and the bone marrow transplant:  

Updates sent out to friends and relatives 


This is the contents of a little "good luck bag" that Juliet took with her to the hospital during her chemotherapy cycles. There's a list of things in this world that make life worthwhile. There's a good fortune from a fortune cookie, two lucky pennies, a dream catcher, a baby from a Mardi Gras king cake, and two mice because "if the drugs can work on the mice, they can work on you."

In November of 1992, Juliet was interviewed by Dr. Bob Arnot of the "CBS This Morning" for a series on cutting-edge medical treatments. The interview took place after Juliet had finished all of her conventional chemotherapy and just before the autologous bone marrow transplant. While stem cell harvesting is considered almost common treatment now, back then it was a medical breakthrough:

Video of Juliet on "CBS This Morning"


For the last few weeks of her life, Juliet had a horrible case of the shingles. This is something she scribbled on a pad at that time. It was terrible, unnecessary pain... and yet she kept going. Two weeks before she died, she masterminded a huge birthday party for Abby. Two days before she died, she had a birthday brunch for her step-father, Danny, here at the house.

The cancer didn't come back until June of 1994 and things were a blur after that.  The final newsletter was sent out in September of 1995, about five months before Juliet died: 

September 1995 update

Heaven forbid that any of you have or get cancer, or that you found this site by doing a search on leiomyosarcoma. Juliet found it easier to deal with her cancer by knowing as much about it as possible, by asking the hard questions, and by remembering at all times the lack of omnipotence or omniscience on the part of doctors in general. In case anyone needs them, here are a few quick links to cancer info resources:

Selected cancer links

A while back, NPR's All Things Considered did an interesting and thought-provoking series of segments called "The End of Life: Exploring Death in America." It explored such forbidden topics as the isolation of the dying and the new pressures on the terminally ill to die in a timely fashion. The series' accompanying Web site isn't all heavy philosophy. A particularly fun section contains selections on death from popular culture, including an excerpt from the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the infamous "Dead Parrot" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus!

ATC: The End of Life

 

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