There is a FB friend I've had for years. She's not a person I know in real life, but we became friends through a game on social media. It's casual friendship. We trade jokes and that kind of thing. Recently I've not seen many of her posts. I haven't been on that much either, so it didn't exactly bother me much.
Then she posted again and I found out she has cancer. Her symptoms were brushed off and overlooked. She wasn't taken seriously for years. Doctors thought she was making something out of nothing and she was denied basic tests that could have helped her. Now she has stage four cancer in her intestines and it's spread to most of her other organs. She's dying.
And why was she ignored? Well I'm sure there are a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones seems to be that she was heavy. When she started losing weight, at first, of course, she wasn't that concerned about it herself because, hey, anything is better than being fat, right? But then she started puking quite often and had trouble controlling her bowels. One doctor flat out accused he of bulimia. Others handwaved her concerns and tried to alter her diet. When she couldn't keep that food down either, they suggested mental health.
She posted a video explaining her situation. She is now gaunt and haunted looking. As much as she hates the idea of dying so young, what comes across the most in the video is the indignation at how she was treated.
I am grieved about this. And angry. Like I said, she is a casual FB friend, but she is still a friend. Now she is dying over things that, if caught early enough, could have been treated. No one listened to her because they just saw a fat woman losing weight. It just sickens me.
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