Editor’s Note: Columnist Diane Glass was diagnosed with Stage 4 bile
duct cancer on July 6. She lost her fight against cancer early Monday,
July 30, with family members at her side.
While in hospice care, Diane finished this column with the help of her
sister, Janet Glass Dekle. Woman to Woman will resume with Shaunti
Feldhahn and a guest columnist in three weeks.
A 42-year-old single female, in a promising relationship, is getting ready to adopt a baby from China after just landing a big promotion at work. Suddenly she is stricken with a rare form of cancer usually affecting men in their 70’s. It sounds like Greek tragedy, or perhaps something too over the top to even believe, but certainly something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
I can’t tell you if it unfolds like a play, if it sounds that way, since it takes so much energy out of me being sick, but the drama in my life these days feels that way. I can tell you that watching your family and friends come to your bedside is probably one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching parts of your life, even in a hospital bed. And while I’d love to stay and make up a new ending, I’m afraid weakness overcomes no matter how hard I try. I feel like the ending lacks proper drama, no sudden train crash or a fatal fall down the stairs. Just less clarity.
In writing my column I’m overwhelmed by passion, drive and a determination to figure out where things will go from here. While I don’t know how many columns I have left, this one I needed to finish. DIANE MARIE GLASS
By JANET GLASS DEKLE
Most of you know my little sister, Diane Glass, to be a woman of intelligence and strongly felt opinions. She received her Master’s Degree from Harvard, no easy feat. But to me, she remains my little sister.
Many of her friends feel that way about her too. You just want to take her under your wing and protect her, but from an early age she had a distinct independent streak. From the moment she picked up a half-eaten sandwich off the sidewalk and took a bite out of it while on a family vacation in Galveston, Tex., I knew I’d have to keep an eye on her and help her out sometimes. Like now.
She had ups and downs in her personal as well as professional life, but recently things had been going well. She had a great job, a great boyfriend and she was getting ready to adopt a baby as a single mother. She exercised regularly, ate organically healthy and didn’t drink a lot.
That’s why her illness came as such a shock. Bile duct cancer is a relatively rare cancer that grows undetected until it’s nearly too late. As with everything in Diane’s life, she was ready to stand her ground and fight. But cancer doesn’t fight fair. Around every corner there was a Catch-22 situation, taking away the options for surgery and chemotherapy.
Diane would not want anyone to feel sorry for her. In fact, while I stayed with her during her 3- week stint at the hospital, she kept apologizing to me, and to others, for having cancer. That was my little sister, always wanting to please people.
The medication that relieved her pain also left her unable to think clearly. Stuck in a hospital bed, Diane worried about finishing her columns. She didn’t want to let readers down. She didn’t want to let herself down. She was so concerned about “Woman to Woman” that I found her sometimes, in the midst of medication-induced dreams, with arms outstretched, typing and drinking coffee.
That’s the reason I am writing for her today, because she couldn’t. But she let me know what to say.
If she could write it, she would want everyone to know that she was a woman who stood behind the facts and believed knowledge was power. She would want every little girl, especially her niece, Ava, to know that she could be anything she wanted to be, and that being strong didn’t make you any less of a woman. That standing by your beliefs was the only way to live your life and that it was ok to make mistakes if you could indeed learn from them. And she would want every young girl to know that you can’t make yourself whole with someone else, you need to be happy with yourself first, then you can really enjoy life.
Some people run out of life, some people waste the one they’re given, others don’t even know they have one to live. My sister had a lot more life to live. She just ran out of time.
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By Diane Glass
Editor’s Note: Columnist Diane Glass was diagnosed with Stage 4 bile duct cancer on July 6. She lost her fight against cancer early Monday, July 30, with family members at her side.
While in hospice care, Diane finished this column with the help of her sister, Janet Glass Dekle. Woman to Woman will resume with Shaunti Feldhahn and a guest columnist in three weeks.
A 42-year-old single female, in a promising relationship, is getting ready to adopt a baby from China after just landing a big promotion at work. Suddenly she is stricken with a rare form of cancer usually affecting men in their 70’s. It sounds like Greek tragedy, or perhaps something too over the top to even believe, but certainly something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. I can’t tell you if it unfolds like a play, if it sounds that way, since it takes so much energy out of me being sick, but the drama in my life these days feels that way. I can tell you that watching your family and friends come to your bedside is probably one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching parts of your life, even in a hospital bed. And while I’d love to stay and make up a new ending, I’m afraid weakness overcomes no matter how hard I try. I feel like the ending lacks proper drama, no sudden train crash or a fatal fall down the stairs. Just less clarity. In writing my column I’m overwhelmed by passion, drive and a determination to figure out where things will go from here. While I don’t know how many columns I have left, this one I needed to finish. DIANE MARIE GLASS
By JANET GLASS DEKLE
Most of you know my little sister, Diane Glass, to be a woman of intelligence and strongly felt opinions. She received her Master’s Degree from Harvard, no easy feat. But to me, she remains my little sister.
Many of her friends feel that way about her too. You just want to take her under your wing and protect her, but from an early age she had a distinct independent streak. From the moment she picked up a half-eaten sandwich off the sidewalk and took a bite out of it while on a family vacation in Galveston, Tex., I knew I’d have to keep an eye on her and help her out sometimes. Like now.
She had ups and downs in her personal as well as professional life, but recently things had been going well. She had a great job, a great boyfriend and she was getting ready to adopt a baby as a single mother. She exercised regularly, ate organically healthy and didn’t drink a lot.
That’s why her illness came as such a shock. Bile duct cancer is a relatively rare cancer that grows undetected until it’s nearly too late. As with everything in Diane’s life, she was ready to stand her ground and fight. But cancer doesn’t fight fair. Around every corner there was a Catch-22 situation, taking away the options for surgery and chemotherapy.
Diane would not want anyone to feel sorry for her. In fact, while I stayed with her during her 3- week stint at the hospital, she kept apologizing to me, and to others, for having cancer. That was my little sister, always wanting to please people.
The medication that relieved her pain also left her unable to think clearly. Stuck in a hospital bed, Diane worried about finishing her columns. She didn’t want to let readers down. She didn’t want to let herself down. She was so concerned about “Woman to Woman” that I found her sometimes, in the midst of medication-induced dreams, with arms outstretched, typing and drinking coffee.
That’s the reason I am writing for her today, because she couldn’t. But she let me know what to say.
If she could write it, she would want everyone to know that she was a woman who stood behind the facts and believed knowledge was power. She would want every little girl, especially her niece, Ava, to know that she could be anything she wanted to be, and that being strong didn’t make you any less of a woman. That standing by your beliefs was the only way to live your life and that it was ok to make mistakes if you could indeed learn from them. And she would want every young girl to know that you can’t make yourself whole with someone else, you need to be happy with yourself first, then you can really enjoy life.
Some people run out of life, some people waste the one they’re given, others don’t even know they have one to live. My sister had a lot more life to live. She just ran out of time.