eavesdropper, it was 2004, for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It was beautiful and my youngest kid loved touring all the monuments with her cousin. Easter Sunday was a cold 39 degrees – LOL.
I was visiting my dear younger sister who lived in MD. She was a very successful controller for a large defense contractor there – not far from DC. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in Jan. 2007 and lasted 10 mos. after that. She had the same exact medical insurance policy as the Presidential Cabinet, yet nothing could be done for her. She was treated by the finest hospitals in the country (UMMC Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins) but it didn’t matter.
With a Masters Degree in Taxation, she left behind a spouse of 27 yrs., two teenage sons, a $1M life policy from work, approx. $3.25M in Fidelity funds and a large paid-for house. None of it matters to me because she’s gone. She was a math whiz at 14 and planned her life perfectly from the get go and benefited from her planning (up to a point) and then . . . it was all over . . . quickly.
She valiantly tried to survive for her first son’s HS graduation . . . to no avail. There is no cure at stage 4 . . . it was too late.