Sad, so damn sad

[n2doc]

Alicia Parlette faces final stages of journey


Courtesy of Shirley-Anne Owden
Alicia Parlette, who has decided to end treatment for cancer, enjoys a gathering with friends last month in San Francisco.

Surrounded by her favorite things - her rescue dog, Clarabelle, a 1960 edition of "To Kill a Mockingbird," her scrapbooks and her stuffed Baby Bear, San Francisco writer Alicia Parlette is saying her goodbyes to family, friends and her new fiance as she enters the final chapter of her battle with cancer.

She is 28 years old.

Her memoir, "Alicia's Story," is a rich examination of love and faith tested by incurable disease and told through the journey of a young woman who had just begun her career as a copy editor for The Chronicle when she found out in 2005 she had a rare form of cancer in her hip and breast called alveolar soft part sarcoma. Fewer than 200 new cases appear in the United States each year.

She got the news three years after her mother died of cancer.

Her 17-part newspaper series was later turned into a book and drew tens of thousands of followers from around the world who said reading about Alicia's triumphs and setbacks helped them handle their own tragedies with grace.

In the early morning hours of April 2, Parlette went to the emergency room and was admitted into the hospital with debilitating pain in her hip and increased breathing problems. The tumors in her lungs had grown to the point where she could no longer breathe on her own. Days later, she was moved to the intensive-care unit, where X-rays revealed a hip fracture. Doctors told her the tumor had degraded too much of the bone in her femur and hip; surgery was not an option. It was time, they said, to start saying goodbye.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/16/MNSC1CUMNU.DTL

[msedano]

1. safe and pleasant journey, shirley-anne owden

pass with grace, surrounded by your loves.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. May you go peacefully in the arms of an angel, Alicia Parlette. A year ago when I was diagnosed with

the 'big C', it dawned on me that our lives are just a series of memories. I was driving home from Tulsa when I began to think about dying and the flashes of 60 years began to run like a movie through my mind. It's all about who we loved and what we did.

[emilyg]

5. Amen - I'm a

cancer survivor.

[havocmom]

3. Safe passage to the next phase

It seems she was to be a teacher for many. One hopes that when so young a person dies, it is because their soul was already old enough to know how to get this lifetime's work done soon and move on to the next set of tasks in the next life.

Perhaps so good a teacher is a soul now on the short path to enlightenment.

Strength to her loved ones. May they all find courage in her grace.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

4. what you said. n/t

[n2doc]

6. kick n/t