From: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
To: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
Date: Monday, August 13, 2018 at 11:16 AM
Subject: Hello
Hi, Carrie. It’s been a few years, but I thought I might see how you’ve been doing since we last saw each other, how the time has just flown! We’ve mostly been fine here, kids and Ben are all good. Ben retired last year, and after Raewyn went off to Otago University we decided to sell the house in Auckland and bought a little place near Whangamata in the Coromandel, close to the beach. I think our last Christmas card had a photo of us all in front of the new place when the kids were home on holiday?
I thought of you a few days ago, because there’s just no easy way to slide this into a conversation, but I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. Endometrial, stage 3. Scheduled for a hysterectomy next week. I feel a little embarrassed emailing you out of the blue like this, since we haven’t really been close friends. But I knew from Julie that you had the same cancer a few years ago, and wondered if you might have any advice that doctors sometimes don’t think about? Maybe I’m just being over anxious about it all and if this is too presuming, I apologise. It’s all a bit, well, overwhelming. Hope to hear from you soon.
From: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
To: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
Date: Monday, August 14, 2018 at 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: Hello
What a lovely surprise to hear from you, Michelle! We did get your Christmas card last year with the photo, your new place looks great. We all thought it must be huge fun to celebrate Christmas with a barbecue in the middle of summer! Must be good for Ben to have some free time now that he’s retired. New Zealand looks amazing, pretty far cry from Iowa. Scotty wants to know does Ben still fish?
Jenny and Dave have grown so fast since you last saw them, they’re amazing adults now. Dave is in community college and Jenny has a job at Costco, which she likes much better than she did working for Wal-Mart. She’s hoping to save enough that when Dave finishes his trade certification she can afford to do a few classes in animal care. She’d love to be a vet—remember the old 4H clubs where she showed her little Frizzle chickens? Still has the ribbons if not the chickens! I’d just be happy if she can be a vet assistant, no scholarships these days for kids anymore.
Don’t worry, I know how you feel—cancer is just such a bolt from the blue and nobody ever knows what to say to anyone. I’m so glad you thought of me and of course I’ll be happy to give you what limited benefit of my experience as I can. I don’t know if Julie told you, but mine is recurrent—came back in my bowels about a year ago. I was fortunate that I still had ADA, so my insurance covered most of the cost of the drug treatment, thankfully. I managed to finish a second round of chemo before ObamaCare was repealed, since treatment is so expensive now I couldn’t have afforded it! We haven’t been able to find another insurance company willing to take me on, not with pre-existing, but there’s still a chance it can be treated so I’m trying not to worry too much.
Just see what the doctor says after your hysterectomy. Sometimes we do get lucky! Thinking of you, love from Scotty and me both.
From: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
To: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2018 at 4:52 PM
Subject: Back from the hospital
Hi, Carrie, thanks for replying so quickly to my last email, and for the kind words of support! I didn’t realise your cancer had come back, I’m so sorry to hear that! Hopefully there’s still a chance it’s treated, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
We had to commute to Auckland for the surgery, that’s one headache we hadn’t thought of when Ben retired. The local GP here is okay for your everyday stuff but all the specialists are all in the city. Which, of course, means Ben had to find a hotel, not cheap. I had a three day stay in Waitakere and the surgeon did my hysterectomy endoscopically—amazing they can just look down those little tubes in your belly and take everything out without a big scar! The food was your typical hospital muck, so Ben had to go buy me take-away, which the first day or so I couldn’t eat anyway, no appetite. Hopefully I’ll have lost a few pounds, must look for some silver lining.
That’s the good news—the bad news is I’m definitely going to have to have chemo. They want to give me Taxol and carboplatin, which is supposed to be better than the old cisplatin—is that what you had? They did warn me all my hair will fall out, so Ben gave me one of his world famous military buzz-cuts. I did have a wee cry, it’s still pretty awful looking in the mirror—I can only imagine what bald is going to be like!
From: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
To: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: Back from the hospital
Hi, Michelle, glad to know your surgery went well. Sorry to hear how much of a hassle it must be living so far from city. We’re pretty far from Des Moines ourselves, so commuting wasn’t always easy, especially since there aren’t any local women’s health centers anymore. The last Planned Parenthood center in the county was shut down last year. Well, not so much shut down as burned down, but that was about the only place left that was willing to see patients without insurance. So I have to drive to Des Moines for my check-ups, although we’ve had to put off on that for another month or two.
Scotty hurt his knee mowing the lawns last year which is making it harder for him to keep up with the quotas at work. There’s already rumors flying around that they’re going to close his regional office because of outsourcing overseas, so he’s worried we’ll lose his insurance through the job as well. He had an injection a few months ago, which should have been covered but turns out it wasn’t because his orthopedist didn’t get the right drugs from the right vendor, even though the office called the insurance company ahead of time for authorization and they said it didn’t need to be preauthorized with any specific vendor. Now it turns out it did, and we’ve been billed over $2,000. We’re already on a pretty tight budget as it is, so that wasn’t good. But we just try to keep positive and pray the good Lord looks after us, all we can do at the moment.
Bald isn’t so bad, and it does grow back faster than you might think, you’ll be fine!
Love to you both, Carrie.
From: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
To: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 4, 2018 at 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Back from the hospital
Dear Carrie,
What a nightmare! I don’t understand why your country doesn’t have better healthcare, the United States is so big and so rich compared to little old New Zealand! But I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising, given who you all voted for over there.
Can’t you see if you can find a clinical trial of some kind that might want to treat you with a new drug or something? I’ve been enrolled into two, the cancer research here is pretty amazing—one is a study on the nerves in my eyes, and the other is a new drug that’s supposed to lessen the side effects of chemo, doesn’t really have anything to do with cancer itself. But I say why not? Doesn’t cost anything and might help. I’m sure there must be something out there for you, you just need to look a bit harder maybe? God does help those who help themselves, so they say.
We’ve had to cut back as well, since even though my treatment is covered by the state (it’s why we pay our taxes after all!) it’s still taken a bite out of the bank account. We did have plans to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with a cruise to Singapore next year, might have to just make do with a trip over to Ozzie and see mates on the Gold Coast instead.
Hugs to you and Scotty,
Michelle
From: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
To: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
Date: Friday, November 23, 2018 at 11:15 AM
Subject: Just a quick update
Dear Michelle,
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, things have been a bit hectic around here. It sounds like you’ve got your cancer treatment well in hand, doubt there’s much I can tell you that would be of much benefit.
Yes, I had hoped for better, too, although I’m not sure it makes much difference who anyone votes for anymore, and wish everything weren’t a choice between bad and worse. The mid-term elections were very confusing, hard to know who has won anywhere, nobody seems to know anything.
ACA (God forbid you call it “ObamaCare” anymore!) hasn’t been replaced, and it’s only getting worse. There aren’t any clinical trials being run here much, at least none that focus on anything to do with women. Jenny is having trouble finding anyone who will prescribe her birth control for her endometriosis, it’s all registered on a national database now and doctors don’t like having visits from Homeland Security about who they treat and for what. Poor kid, she’s barely eighteen. I feel so guilty and worried that she’s inherited my cancer genes.
In any case, we’ve got bigger problems to worry about. The insurance company turned down our appeal over Scotty’s injection, and we have to find the money to pay for that somewhere. But I did manage to finally see my specialist in Des Moines, and she had bad news, the cancer has come back and is spreading. I’m not feeling particularly sick just yet, but the cost of the drugs I’d need is more than we can pay for, now that Scotty isn’t working any more—did I tell you? The factory closed, everyone in town is pretty much unemployed. It’ll be some time before we can even dream about cruises to anywhere.
We’re scraping together every penny we’ve got left to help Dave, our oldest. He went to Canada without telling us a few weeks ago with some of his friends from college to try to buy me the drugs I’d need since they’re about a tenth of what they are here, but at the border US Customs confiscated them all along with his passport and told him he could be charged with a felony drug offense. He can’t even prove he’s an American citizen and he can’t get back into the country. But the American embassy in Canada keeps telling him he has to get a replacement passport here, they can’t issue him one! He says he’s being looked after okay, but we just want our son home.
Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you, hope you understand and that your chemo is going well,
Best wishes, Carrie
From: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
To: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
Date: Sunday, November 25, 2018 at 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: Just a quick update
Oh my god, Carrie, that’s awful! How can Dave be arrested for chemo drugs, it’s not like it’s heroin! I’m bald now, chemo hurts a lot, although the clinical trial drugs seem to be working well. I wish I had more energy to write a longer email. But I’ll keep you all in my thoughts and prayers, do let us know how you get on!
Big hugs to you all,
Michelle
From: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
To: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
Date: Thursday, December 20, 2018 at 4:15 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Just a quick update
Dear Michelle,
Not sure if you’ll get this email or not, since I’m having to write from one of those internet café places. I saw my oncologist a few weeks ago. It’s too late to treat my cancer, it’s gone to my bones and gotten very aggressive. She was very nice, didn’t charge me for the visit, which is just as well since we couldn’t have paid for it anyway. The prognosis she says is, with treatment, maybe a few years. Without, maybe six months, if I take care of myself. We can’t afford it, we have no insurance left. So six months, if I’m lucky.
Thing have spiraled out of control here anyway, the cancer is ironically the least of my worries. We lost our house. We had police serve us notice that because of Dave’s so-called drug offense, under RICO law our property was forfeit and they confiscated it along with what money we had left in our bank account. Scotty managed to get Jenny and the cat along with at least some of our possessions into the car before that was confiscated as well and they’re on their way to California to apply to one of the sanctuary cities there for refuge. There’s no point in me going, not with the condition I’m in. Nobody is going to take in a terminal cancer patient, no matter how generous they try to be.
I may never see either of them again, just hoping they make it in time—it’s hard to figure out what’s “fake” or not anymore now that the news is so regulated and my access to a lot of internet sites is restricted, but it seems the entire west coast is about to secede for real. The National Guard has already been deployed in Des Moines, where I’m staying with some friends. Nobody you know, and I don’t want to say who, because you never know who’s reading this anymore. We’ve got tanks on the streets and you can’t tell who the cops are from the military, there’s protests and riots breaking out everywhere. It’s like a war zone. Part of me is scared, but part of me feels oddly liberated. I’ve got nothing left to lose, and if one sick fifty-five-year-old woman who can barely stand up without a walker can do anything at all to help, I’ve already knitted myself one of those silly pink hats—it’s cold on the streets of Des Moines this time of year!
See you on the news, wish me luck.
From: Michelle Farley <mbfarley@gomail.co.nz>
To: Carrie Westlyn <cjwestlyn@gomail.com>
Date: Monday, August 13, 2018 at 1:51 PM
Subject: Are you there?
Yes! I got your email! Carrie, please don’t be stupid, you can’t take on the government and win. Surely there’s something you can do, but protests are just going to get you hurt, they can’t fix anything. You’re in no fit state for that anyway. I rang Julie the other day, she suggested maybe you could try to get across to Canada like all those immigrants do, surely they’d help you? Be sensible, think of your family, they need you. I’ll pray for you, just please be careful and let us know you’re okay.
Love from us both, Michelle
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