"So here is the sad story to begin my blog. When I was like 14 or 15, my good friend Christie introduced me to this vibrant girl named Lauren Skillman. When I first saw her she was coming out of a little pizza place wearing this white flowy skirt and a pink shirt that had a guitar on it. She also had this HUGE beautiful smile on her face. We hit it off right away and were instant friends. As the years went by our friendship was strong, we went a few months in between where we didn’t hang out much but from the time I was 17 on she had become my best friend.
Lauren was not like anyone I had ever met before. She was a little firecracker and was not afraid to tell you what she thought. I have always been the same way, so I really liked that about her at times. We were both really hard headed so yes we did fight, and would go a while without speaking to one another. For some reason though we always found our way back to each other. It was like we had this sisterly connection. Something I had never had with anyone. I grew up with four brothers so I definitely did not know the ins and outs of sisterhood. But I believe she taught me that.
Lauren was the type of person that if you didn’t have a smile she would give you hers. Her smile was like sunshine. She could liven up any room she walked into, and made friends where ever she went. It was hard to not like her. And if you didn’t she wanted to do whatever she could to become your friend, she wanted no enemies.
When Lauren was seventeen she found a lump in her neck. I didn’t really think much of it, not knowing that her family had a history of cancer. When the lump was looked at, it was found to be cancerous. She had a rare cancer called peripheral nerve sheath tumor. They removed the tumor and Lauren thought she was home free. When she was eighteen, I believe, they found seven more tumors in her neck. This was going to be a little more tricky because she had to have a big surgery and also had to go through radiation. I was so incredibly scared for her…I remember going to my parents and telling them about what was going on. I started crying in that process and expressed how scared I was for her.
I can remember being there at Lauren’s house and how sick she would get from the radiation treatments. She hated for me to see her get sick so she kind of pushed me away. I was persistent in being there though. I thought to myself that I was going to do what I had to do as a friend in order to make this time a little less hard on her. When she got through that treatment, she was so ecstatic to be able to begin her life. She had overcome a great obstacle and knew that her life was just waiting for her. A few weeks after her last treatment, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was a complete mess when my dad told me, and the first person I called was Lauren. I remember her answering the phone and I was trying to tell her what was going on but I couldn’t get it out because I was crying so hard. Throughout that whole process she was a great friend to me. She was there for me when I cried, and made me laugh when I just couldn’t seem to smile. I remember her and Christie made these cute little cards to give to my mom, with words of encouragement. My mom is now a 2 year survivor.
I think it was when Lauren was 18 and Christie was 19 they set off on a new adventure…College in San Marcos. They got an apartment together and were going to the same school. Before they left I threw them a big going away themed party. We all dressed like the people from Jersey Shore (they both loved that show). I cried a lot before they left. They were my two closest friends and they were both going to be 4 hours away from me. It was hard to adjust to that. I feel like we all got busy and didn’t talk as much as we promised we would. But we remained just as close.
After they had been in San Marcos a while, Lauren got sick. They thought it was pneumonia, then bronchitis, but it was none of those things. She told me when she went to the clinic they did an x-ray and told her that it didn’t look good and that she needed to go back to Fort Worth that day. At this point her and I had gotten in a fight over something extremely stupid and hadn’t talked in a few weeks. So when I saw on her Facebook that she was headed back and hoping the cancer wasn’t back, I text her and told her I was praying that everything was alright. She told me everything that was going on, and that she was really scared. This was on a Monday…I wasn’t able to see her until Wednesday. I knew how serious everything was because she was completely honest with me. I’m not going to lie I was hysterical, in fact I had my first panic attack.
That Wednesday she called me crying and said “Cori, the doctors said it doesn’t look good, that they don’t know if treatment will work for me, and that I might pass away today. Will you please come up here”….I lost it. I was crying so hard that I was throwing up. I didn’t know how to handle a situation like this. I had never dealt with death before, and I wasn’t prepared to handle it now. I honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to compose myself in order to go to the hospital. But I called my mom and she told me that I had to be strong for her…her exact words were “A cancer patient does not want to be treated like a cancer patient.” she told me to go in there and treat her as Lauren, not as Lauren with cancer. So I composed myself as much as I could and I went to the hospital. When I got there her family gave us a minute alone. She told me that they said she could start chemo but that she was refusing it because her biggest fear was loosing her hair. I told her what I thought about that and encouraged her to start the treatments, but ultimately it was Dillion, her boyfriend that talked her into doing it.
The doctors had done a scan on Lauren and had found 9 tumors in her lungs, one being the size of a grapefruit, wrapped around her bronchial tubes. She had less than a straws worth of room to breathe through. But when they started the chemo, it began working right away. Her tumors were shrinking and she could breathe better. It was a miracle!!! The first of many. As the months went on she got better and better, except for the being sick from treatments. The doctors didn’t know why the treatments were working, they did not think she would leave that hospital alive. But Lauren told her mom “I got this”, and she showed us what true courage was. She did everything with a smile, very few tears came from her eyes.
In an effort to keep everyone updated about Lauren’s condition, I made a group page on Facebook. I just added all of her friends and posted what was going on. I had no idea what this would turn into. Within 2 weeks of starting the group there was over 3,000 members, and NBC wanted to do a story on her. People were just blown away by her story. This 20 year old woman, with a life threatening disease had the spirit of an angel. She was so positive and bubbly and excited to see everyone and ask them how they were doing. It was an incredible thing to witness.
Throughout all of her treatment Lauren had many extraordinary things happen to her. The first of which was that Tim Halperin from American Idol called her and told her that he was going to come to the hospital and serenade her! Then Lyle Lovett called her…a lot! He just loved Lauren and wanted to know how she was doing! He even had her as a special guest and dedicated a song to her on stage when he did a concert in Dallas. On Easter she got a HUGE surprise…the door bell rang and when she came to the door, Steve-O from Jackass was standing there. She told me she was SO excited she couldn’t hide it! But the most extraordinary thing that happened to Lauren, was the person that she blossomed into. The person she was destined to be. A ray of Sunshine in so many people’s lives.
In September Lauren was put in remission, just a month before her 21st birthday. The day she told me I couldn’t hold back the tears of happiness. I was so overwhelmed with happiness that I had a hard time focusing. On her 21st birthday she had a huge “Monster Mash” costume party (her favorite holiday is Halloween). That party was the dream party she had talked about for as long as I had known her. There was a DJ, a live band, beer pong, a ton of people having a good time, and her family. Everyone had a ball! What everyone didn’t know was the pain that Lauren was hiding behind her smile. She knew this battle wasn’t over. She felt it in her gut, literally. She was having so much pain in her stomach and trouble breathing that she could barely walk. When she went to the clinic to try and figure out what was wrong they just said she was constipated and that the pneumonitis she developed from radiation was making it hard for her to breathe.
On the Friday night a week after her birthday, I met her at Love Shack with her dad and sister. She asked me to take her home early because she was in a lot of pain. When we tried to walk to the car she couldn’t even make it there, I had to pull the car around to get her. She couldn’t breathe. I called my mom (whom is an RN) and asked her if I needed to take her to the ER, she advised me that I should take her right away. When we got there, Lauren really began to panic. I think she knew something was really wrong. I stayed with her until her dad got there with his stuff to stay the night. The last thing I heard that night was that they had found pneumonia in her lungs. From that point on things just continued to go down hill. I’m not really sure what was going on, all I know is that there was an infection and fluid had filled her lungs. They could not preform a procedure on her to get the fluid out because she was not strong enough to do so. She could not breathe well enough.
The next Friday Lauren text me and said “You might want to come to the hospital, the doctors found some stuff out and I want you to be here when they tell my family”…..as soon as I stepped in that room I knew what the doctor was going to tell us. I began to weep. He proceeded to tell us that Lauren had maybe a week to live, that there was medically nothing they could do for her now. As he spoke these words I felt in a state of panic, I had another panic attack in the middle of him telling us everything. I had to leave the room and a friend of mine took me to the bathroom in the hospital where I hid in a shower for a good hour, trying to compose myself and catch my breath. I wrote Lauren a letter telling her how much I loved her and put some inside jokes in it. I’m glad she was able to read it.
That Saturday everyone and their mom came to say their farewells to Lauren. When I got my turn to go in the room that day I gave her a big hug and let her know that she was my best friend and that no one would ever replace her. She said to me “Remember the promise I made you, I’m not going anywhere, I will always be here with you” That night she went into a coma and was down to 4 breaths a minute. The next day they removed her breathing apparatus to let her pass on but 45 minutes later she woke up out of the coma. For the rest of that day and the next day Lauren would come in and out and talk to people. She said she was on a “rampage of love” and kept telling us how happy she was. When she had first woken up she asked her mom “Why am I in the hospital? I was having so much fun, I want to go back” she also said how beautiful heaven was, and told her aunt that she should never be scared to die, it’s beautiful. She let everyone know how much she loved them and that she was happy. She wanted to go on her own terms. On Halloween, which was Monday, they took her hospital bed outside on the patio and threw her a little party. She gave people lots of laughs, and closure for many.
On Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at 11:11 am Lauren’s breathing apparatus was removed. She was again in a coma at this point. But right before she took her final breath she opened her eyes, looked straight at her mom, and smiled. She passed onto her next life a few minutes later. She passed with love, and peace. She did it her way. Although it has been extremely hard, and I cry every day. I am happy to know that she is no longer in pain and that she is happy in heaven.
Before she passed she requested that everyone wear pink and glitter to her celebration of life service….it was a sea of pink that day. So many people showed up to remember this beautiful person they had all come to know. People that didn’t even know her but had heard her story came to celebrate with us. The service was perfect, so Lauren. We could all feel her there with us.
I miss her every day but I know she is still here with us. And I will make sure that her story NEVER dies. Long Live Lala!"
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