Many of you know the Selvi family or have followed Nicks journey as you have followed mine. Nick Selvi was the first person I met after being diagnosed who was both a parent to young children and also shared my diagnosis of Stage IV rectal cancer. I had been fighting for two years before meeting such a person. Every other person I had met in the trenches had a different diagnosis, was substantially older than me, or was facing stage 2 or stage 3 disease. Nick got it. I had heard his story on the news, but it was my good friend Anne who really told me about Nick. When I reached out to him, I had offered my 2 years of treatment experience to him as a voice from the trenches. If som medical professional was going to suggest doing endorectal brachytherapy, I would be able to give him the unfortunate insiders perspective on exactly what I had learned about it and so many other things during my adventures. I think I probably made it sound like I had something to offer him, like maybe I could do him a favor. I think that was dishonest. I needed him. I needed someone to talk to who knew what it was like to try to weave light from the darkness all around, to swallow fear and anxiety because reading someone a Berenstein Bears book was more important. I needed someone to talk to who knew that conversations with family about next years beach trip / Christmas / pumpkin patch trip / whatever required some balance of denial, faith and indomitable will, as well as an understanding that everyone else in the conversation needed to be sold that you believed. I needed Nick more than he probably needed me. We wrote back and forth a few times before he learned that his cancer had spread to his liver. I reached out again and told him about the hepatic pump treatments I was receiving in New York. It offered him hope. Again though, I think I needed someone to talk to about that part of my journey. It is strange that though we lived 15-20 minutes apart, we would not meet in person until we found ourselves at Sloan Kettering on the same day. It was then that I first met his wife, Melanie, as well. I dont know that I have ever met kinder or more gracious people. Over the year or so that followed, we truly became friends. Nick and Melanie and Natalie walked with The Tribe at last years Relay for Life. Melanie and I served as co-captains for the team. Our daughters walked laps together. Nick and I shared battle stories under our relay tent. Such stories from rectal cancer patients are not all pretty. Again, it was good to have someone to talk to, someone who understood what it was like to experience the painful cetuximab rash he and I both shared. Melanie became a special friend too. We got together as schedules permitted to let our 4 year olds play together. I fell in love with their whole family, everything connected to them, everyone connected to them. I will never in my whole life be able to see a wind sock without smiling and thinking of their son Gabe and the demonstration he gave me of what one looks like. I am smiling right now in fact. But though I smile, my heart is broken. Nick went to heaven on November 14. I lost my friend. Melanie, Natalie and Gabe lost so much more. As Melanie and the kids try to find ways to carry on and to also keep Nick alive, they must also work through the financial implications of his loss. The site below was originally established to help cover Nicks medical expenses. Friends are currently rallying to try to raise enough money to keep Melanie and the kids in their home for the coming year. I hate that this is even a worry. I wish that I could make it rain big fat wads of cash in their back yard. I wish it could be so much money that Melanie would be struggling to think of ways to spend it all. But more than anything else, I wish I could bring Nick back. I wish I had my friend back. I wish Melanie could be talking about Sundays episode of Walking Dead with Nick. If I can reach past the selfish part of me that needed Nick, honestly, I wish we had actually never met. I wish Melanie was just the friend of a friend that I had not met yet. I wish Nick was someone on break yesterday from his job as a music teacher at FLES who was simply wished Merry Christmas by my crazy 4 year old in Target. I wish he was someone we had merely sprinkled Christmas magic on in our journey. I dont get that wish. But I can ask you to think about the difference your contribution could make in the life of the Selvi family. If you dont know what to get someone for a Christmas, get them love. Give the Selvi family love...that is my Christmas challenge for YOU! Merry Christmas. God bless you. RIP Nick.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 03:14:59 +0000
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