As I say many a time, I had my Soulmate, my Other Half, my One True Love, Capital-L Love, for 12 years.... And I made a promise to her. One I will keep.

On September 6th 1988, I was starting my third semester of college in Western New York; a FAR cry away from my home on Long Island. My luggage had been mis-directed by the airline, I missed the bus from the airport to the downtown Buffalo Metro Station and had to take a cab.... I missed THAT bus to the college and AGAIN had to take another cab for the 1 hr drive.....

On the 7th, waiting for my luggage to get to campus, I went off and did my thing - going to classes as normal in my don Johnson Lookalike coat, deck shoes and my "AHEAD WARP ZILLION!" Bloom Country shirt.

So there I am in band class, hanging out with the rest of the percussionist and double-bass players, when I see the door sloooowwwwly creep open and a dark-haired girl's head pops in. With a "come in" wave I say, "C'mon in.. y'r in the right place." Two girls came in, both with clarinet cases in thier hands; "Freshmen", I smiled.

Well, a few hours later I went from my all-male dorm across campus to the all-female dorm to see if a friend of mine (Nance) was still there. Surprise-surprise there she was in the hallway just outside her room! With a BIG-ole bear hug she told me, "SHUJIN! Great to see you! I want you to meet my new room-mate this year!"

"....I KNOW YOU!" This from the "little girl" inside sitting on her bed in the room. Now ME, I'm now wondering just what happened and what did I do to annoy her... and just WHO the heck IS this person?!

Turns out she was one of the girls that came into band late and was waved in by a guy near the door, hanging out with a bunch of off, laughing loud guys... apparently drummers, she overheard from some of the other woodwinds.

And that, as they say, was when everything changed... because, you see.. THAT was Fujin. That was 7 September, 1988, and we always celibrated that day like any other anniversary.

I left college that December and returned to Long Island - 500 miles away and from then until she graduated in '92, we were never apart for more than 3 months... and in case you're wondering, this was before Cell Phones and All Inclusive Long-Distance Telephone Plans. Yes, we helped fund MCI a lot!

We moved in together in November, married that summer, gained jobs, lost jobs, endured a basement apartment (PROTIP: Don't EVER live in a basement apartment!), but always we were in Love.

One day just before Fujin left for work I gave her a big hug and felt something... weird. Not soft like she normally was. Was it the dragon neclace? No. Hmm.. Ok, have it checked.... After several tests it was inconclusive. Even after a few doctors. Even a mamogram clinic's computer said it was "dense breast tissue" and that she should come back in a few years for a normal age-suggested mamogram.

She was then 31 years old.

In 2002, right after TinyTribble's (TT) birth, the ObGyn scedualed Fujin for some more tests to see what the "dense tissue" really was. This ALSO went a few doctors around. finally landing us at The Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) in Buffalo, New York. Six weeks after TT's birth, RPCI's diagnosis was immense; Angiosarcoma, described by the doctor then as, "for US, it's one-in-a-million type of cancer" with a five-year survival of 20%. It tends to affect people like us, young couples starting to have a family / children, and it is vicious, fast acting, tenacious and somewhat of a mystery.

Fujin had to stop breast feeding and began a treatment regiment begining with a mastectomy, then chemo on an out-patient basis.... all with a newborn and a house being built.

Fujin's Oncologist at RPCI was a man I have the UTMOST respect for... a PHD & MD, he was a researcher, working on various treatements in the lab. Fujin's biopsy gave them only the third sample of Angiosarcoma to work with. One treatment he found was a clinical trial for a new class of drug (AntiAngioGenesis) designed to prevent the tumor from growing new blood pathways and shrink the ones it already had. In the lab it was ASTOUNDING! A proverbial Silver Bullet! That drug was Avastin(tm).

Fujin was granted a free treatment by the company.. something that would have cost us upwards of $10,00+.... Unfortunately the tumors had spread over time; sternum, thigh bone, liver, lungs.... the drug worked, but all too well; the tumors shrinking allowed blood to spill into areas it shoudln't be, not unlike shrinking a cork in a wine bottle. (To this day, I still believe if this had been given to her near the outset, she'd be with us today.)

On May 22nd, 2005, one month before the Ride for Roswell (R4R) I recieved the call from RPCI to go in, that Fujin was in bad shape - she'd been admitted as an in-patient because of her worstening condition.... upon arrival the doctors and nurses were working on her, trying to help her breathe, bring her back to consciousness....

I had to make the last choice for my Love and told the staff to stop working on her; they had told me before of our choices when the fluid in her lungs made breathing nearly impossible, how a breathing tube would be painful, how it might damage her mouth.... and how trying to help her breath that way might kill her in half-a-dozen painful ways....

That I could not allow. I ordered the team to stop. I held her hand along with Fujin's mom and kept her comforted through the final steps. I told her, "I promise you, we will beat this form someone else.... My Word."

It was 7pm Eastern Time and short of her 35th birthday by less than three months.

Fujin didn't want to be known for her cancer, even though it's a big part of her story, so here's some of who she was:

• Business woman - working with some High Tech comapnies like Microsoft, Borland, IBM, Kingston memory....
• Wife - She shared her life with me, truly... and shared in mine around the world....
• Mother - She LOVED TT deeply and whole heartedly. When I picked Fujin up at RPCI after a treatment, she always went to the car seat first to greet TT, always saying, "You're getting so BIIIIG!"
• Musician - She LOVED playing music, singing most especially, even getting the chance to sing in the Sydney Opera House! (It was on a tour, but still... TWINCE!)
• Dancer - She convinced me to take Ballroom Dancing with her, and not only were we good, we were complimented by the OTHER students! I made her dance in the middle of a resturant in Toronto, once, on a Wedding Anniversary Mini-Cation... much to the delight of the other diners, and the chagrin of the staff.

She was one of the most selfless people you could have known; She said, before all the treatments started, "if what we go through helps some other family not go through what we will, then it will have all been worth it."

So that is it, in a nutshell. This is why I go on every day, doing what I do: being Mister Mom, holding together myself enough to help others see what True Love is, how powerful it is AND how valuable.

I tell evertyone at the end of my DJ shows, "you can survive ANYTHING if you have True Love." And I will.

Do I think we will beat AngioSarcoma in my lifetime? I do not know. But I'll be damned if we won't try.

Will I or Fujin be remembered in 100 years? Again, that I do not know. I only know that she will not be forgotten while I can still do anything about it.

--

Shujin.