My friend Yelli

I met her when she was 22 years old. She had already survived a year of cancer. I hadn’t known anyone that young with cancer. She had the kind of cancer that I thought only old men who smoked cigars for sixty years could get. It was unimaginable.

Danielle was impressive from the moment you engaged with her. A truth teller. A lover of life. A vibrant spirit. A calming energy. The more I got to know her, the more impressed by her I became. She is fearless. She is incredibly resilient. Tough as diamonds, sweet, funny, and fiercely loyal.

I attended her wedding a few years later. She was a beautiful bride. It was a spectacular day, but there was still a fear in the air that her battle was at it’s beginning. It was too. Yell fought cancer seven times before she was 45 years old. Her doctors didn’t want her to have a child because she was not expected to live long enough to raise one. Yelli proved her doctors wrong, and she had her baby. Alex is 21 now. She is a lovely young woman. Who is as fearless as her mama.

I don’t remember why this particular memory stands out, but an evening out with friends the question of heroes was asked, and went around the table. “Do you have one?” I’ve been asked this before at different times in my life. I've never had an answer. Some people talked about actual superheroes. Some folks talked about their mom, dad, grandparents. For me, this night, I had an answer, and she’s been my answer ever since.

About a week prior, Yelli and Alex visited us in the city for the weekend. It was a quick trip. Packed with fun. We did not stop moving from the moment they arrived.. We went to museums, Central Park Zoo ,Times Square. We did everything Alex wanted to do, and you would never know Yelli was sick. Except for one moment in Central Park. She sat on a bench and took a fist full of pills. So much medication. It took my breath away. She did this without complaint. Without ever making the narrative about her. Yelli doesn’t talk about her cancer. Not really. Not unless you bring it up. She is in warrior mode. Unless we initiate, and create that space … She keeps it moving.

Yelli is my Shero.

I think it is well past time for all of us to collectively create a space to give this warrior a voice to ask for what she needs now.

This is what I know.

She doesn’t want to fight anymore. Her fight began in 1994. She has been at war inside of her own her body for 27 years. She has had most of her tongue removed by now. She had radical neck dissection, removal of lymph nodes from the right side of her neck. Danielle has had to re- learn how to eat, and how to lift her arm again after that surgery. She has had radiation, chemotherapy, over 150 hyperbaric chamber treatments. She lost all of her teeth when she was only 35 years old, fighting this disease. Most recently-after a biopsy, a tough round of chemo, and more loss of what is left of her poor tongue, she tried immunotherapy. It did not work. She has pneumonia constantly. A feeding tube is next on the horizon, The doctors wanted to place one 2 years ago, but Yell did not want one.

She is tired.

She wants to live out the time she has left peacefully with her daughter.

She needs help financially getting back to NJ from Florida. She needs help financially getting set up in a space she can be alone with her daughter sharing this precious time.

Cancer is an insidious disease. It has taken so much from so many. My heart breaks at the thought of 27 years of the fighting that Danielle has done. She has had to learn to speak several times, as they have taken more of her tongue. She signs now, and she whispers. I miss her voice, but I can still hear it. She signs with a southern NJ accent. :-) You would love this woman. I adore her! If you can offer my friend any help at this time… Please…please…please.

<3 Rhonda

P.S. Pix is of Yelli and her baby Bug (Alex). Let's reunite them.