The Lizard's killed her too...

Get out your hankie, you are about to cry. If you don't I will find you and kick your butt!! I'll try not to make this too long.

My friends Jan and Sten married and had three boys. Boys grew up and left home. One is career Navy. Good for him. One married and had two kids, became a dope fiend and the couple had the kids taken away by child services. The last married and moved to the Midwest. Not much heard from thereafter. None of the three really paid further attention to Mom. There could have been an underlying reason. Sten from a very young age had lizards. Many lizards. Not just an ole fence lizard, but 2, 3, 4 and 5 foot long exotic lizards. Jan married him anyway. The house was overrun with the creatures. Then came the boys and the lizards stayed. The boys grew up and moved out, the lizards stayed.

Sten got sick. Lizards can make you sick. That's how they live in the wild. They bite something and the poison makes you sick then you die and they eat you.

Sten wasn't just sick it was cancer. He died quickly, age 52. Did anyone tell them it was the lizards? Don't know, probably not, as you will see. The lizards probably didn't bite him. But as big as they were, they certainly left lots of slobber and drool and bite marks on the environment, which was the inside of the house. They cannot crawl across your lap or couch and not get poison drool on you.

Jan kept the lizards after Sten died. Then she got sick. Did anybody tell her it was the lizards? Probably not. But they did say that she had to get rid of the lizards or risk not getting well. She got rid of the lizards.

Now it has been 9 years since Sten passed away and 5 years since the lizards went away. First week in February (two months ago) Jan complains of a lump in her neck and goes to have it checked out. It is a tumor, lets do a biopsy. Not good. It is cancer. But it is too big so chemo treatments are needed to shrink it before surgery. Then she gets pneumonia, then a staff infection.. Then they find more cancer.

This morning I found out she is in a morphine induced state and expected to die within hours. Did anyone tell her it probably was the lizards? Probably not. Doesn't matter anymore.

She took a few days off from work to go to the doctor and once she left the house, she never came back. This isn't just someone I have heard of, she lives next door to my sister. They were is the same class. One year behind me. I have known this woman for over 50 years.

I am dumbfounded. This is so quick. So sad.

When I moved back here last year I unknowingly became a part of my past. Now when I hear about someone locally that dies, in this small town, if I know them, it is for a very long time. I didn't count on that. When you are young, your peers don't die. Now that I am back in my small hometown and a part of the senior set, when some one dies, it is my peer and terribly sad.

Are you crying yet...I am.