Angela and I sat together in her hospital room, she in the bed and me perched on a chair. She’d just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The surgeon gave her one and a half years to live. A tube, protruding from her nose, drained the contents of her stomach. Her eyes stared straight ahead, shock still not absorbing the news.

She’d been unable to keep food down and attributed it to some sort of gastric illness. Maybe her gaul bladder decided to go rogue. Or she had an infection. Something. Just not cancer. Who would think? That sort of thing happened to other people. Not her.

But the CT scan and other various tests didn’t lie. There was a tumor growing on her pancreas, blocking her stomach. Stage Two, her doctor said. Time to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

Fortunately, she’d been scheduled with a top surgeon at a well-regarded hospital. Angela asked me to be her health advocate. She’s a single mom, has no living siblings and her parents are elderly. We’ve been friends since we were five, growing up together and sharing every pinnacle and nadir of our lives. She quite literally trusted me with her life.

After an endless night in ER, her surgeon’s team prepared her for the operation. First, they’d examine the tumor. Then, they’d do a gastric bypass so she could eat. The surgery was expected to take four hours. I gave her hand a squeeze as I hugged her tight, just before they wheeled her off to the OR. A nurse showed me to the waiting room. The surgeon would come and get me once she woke up in the recovery ward.

I didn’t have to be told the operation wasn’t going according to plan when the surgeon showed up in the waiting room one and a half hours later. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “I’m afraid it’s not good,” he said, eyes filled with bedside-manner sympathy. “We opened her up and saw that the cancer had spread. She has Stage Four pancreatic cancer.” He went on to describe what he’d seen, but it didn’t matter. I tried my best to hear what he said, and I did absorb it. Tears streaked down my cheeks. This wasn’t possible. No. Yet he continued, saying they’d do the bypass. Did I want him to tell her about this? Or should we tell her together?

He left, with my deep assurance I’d need to be with her as this news reached her post-operative self. Angela wouldn’t want to receive it alone. Who would? As I watched him head back toward the OR, I sobbed. Hard. What about her daughter? Her life, her parents, her friends, her career – everything she worked so hard to build, to love, to support…tragic victims of a mysterious disease that knows no cure.

Across from me sat an elderly rabbi, his vestments encased in plastic pouches resting on the floor next to his feet. He’d been eying me since the surgeon left. Apparently, he heard everything. He rose from his chair and sat in the vacant one next to mine. “Do you know how to open up a yogurt without making it spurt?” he asked.

Yogurt? Really? What kind of surreal moment was this? “No,” I answered.

“You poke a little hole in the foil lid to make the air come out,” he said, demonstrating the action with his hands. “Then you can open it without it squirting. And do you have a husband?”

Can’t this rabbi read the room? I’m crying, for chrissakes. “No. He left me for a younger woman.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. So let me tell you how to find a man that deserves you.” He then launches into this stream of advice wherein I must tell all of my friends and relatives that they obviously know my perfect mate and they should introduce us. Who needs apps and profiles? Then he goes off, picking up a call on his cell phone. For a moment, I snapped out of my despair. The absurdity of that conversation offered some comfort, at least.

A few hours pass. The surgeon returns. We’re going to recovery. He says a few lighthearted words to prepare me for the inevitable. Angela, bundled up under blankets with tubes extending from her nose and arms, gazes at us with half-mast eyes. In a slow, careful tone, the surgeon delivers the news no one wants to hear. Angela listens, fighting to understand what is being told to her. She asks many questions. The surgeon answers, explaining that she’ll be able to eat in a few days, as if this could possibly brighten the prognosis. He’ll set her up with the oncologist before she’s discharged. One crooked smile later, he departs. A nurse says I have fifteen or so minutes to be with her. They’ll contact me once she gets a room.

I have no idea what to say. At all. Except that I love my friend more than anything and I won’t desert her. I’ll be there for as long as she needs me. Angela tasks me with informing her friends and family with the news. I’m only to tell her daughter they didn’t remove the tumor and did a gastric bypass. Nothing more.

That afternoon, I set about the grim task of informing all of her closest friends, beginning with her parents. Her elderly father did his best not to cry, but his breaking voice gave him away. Her godson immediately dissolved into tears. So did everyone else. Her daughter sounded relieved that she came out of surgery and would be able to eat again, asking no questions about the remaining tumor.

I sat with her as a parade of doctors, nurses and other health care personnel wandered into her room, poking this and prodding that, checking vitals and disturbing her sleep. A very generous friend offered me his apartment so that I could stay nearby until she was discharged. As I brought my laptop with me, my job was accommodating, just as long as I got my work done.

Determination set in. Angela’s new mission was to seek oncologists and clinical tests. Another close friend is a cancer researcher. Pulling some strings, she secured an appointment for Angela with one of the nation’s top cancer treatment centers. No time for playing around with alternative medicines or theories about what does or doesn’t work to shrink an inoperable tumor.

Discharge day couldn’t come soon enough. I took her home, where her godson and daughter awaited. Angela sat with her daughter, explaining to her what no parent should have to. Godson and I excused ourselves to another room, where I told him everything, even though he already knew it. We both needed to rehash this horror to attempt to understand what was happening. Why her?

After a few days of recovery at home, I took Angela to the cancer treatment center. They stated the case for aggressive, immediate chemotherapy. While they didn’t promise miracles, they gave her encouraging news. Her genetic markers revealed the likelihood of positive response to her version of pancreatic cancer. She could possibly be enrolled in a clinical trial. People who came to this cancer center with cases worse than hers have survived over five, seven years. She had every reason to hope, and she should remain optimistic, even though that seemed impossible.

As we left, Angela noted that none of the patients there seemed like they were on death’s door. All looked reasonably healthy. No one was in a wheelchair. Chemotherapy patients walked out of their own accord. Family and friends accompanied patients and stayed with them during chemo sessions. The place appeared full of hope and positive potential.

On the drive back to her house, Angela discussed making plans for her daughter’s future. “I have to live until she turns eighteen,” she said. “That’s one more year.”

“I think we need to think longer than that,” I said. “Maybe a few years longer. Perhaps they’re onto something at this place. Medicine changes all the time. They’re at the forefront of cancer research. They want the best for their patients. And you.”

Angela nodded as she gazed out the window. Bare, brown trees covered the landscape, their dead leaves shrouding the soil. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Miracles would be helpful right about now, too.”

I couldn’t agree more.