I cannot stress enough how much of an impact this single moment has had on me. I had lost a friend
before, but he could not measure up to how much it would have hurt to have lost my best friend.
Kate Meyers is an extraordinary girl. She is about 5'2" and weighs 100 lbs, and can't seem
to keep the guys off her. She is loved by so many, namely her two best friends: myself, and our dear
friend Tasha Bernstein. We have known each other since the sixth grade when I first met Kate while not
paying attention in science class. Everything about our friendship was strange; I was tall for my
age and athletic, while she was short and more artsy. I was an outgoing "goody goody," while she
was the tough cookie everyone knew and loved. Tasha was even stranger; she added the slightly preppy
side to our group. Since then we have become "infamous" everyone in the school knows our names and
knows we are practically attached at the hip, so I'm sure you can imagine what it must have felt
like when, six years later, she was lying in a hospital bed 5'2" and 89lbs. I was in Michigan on
a family vacation when I received a text from our dear friend Jamie Sawyer asking what hospital
Kate was in. I had to read it twice before it sank in. I immediately picked up the phone and held
down the nine key for her speed dial. I talked to her and found that she was feeling sick and had a
temperature of 104 degrees. She was released a little later, only to find her fever had increased to
105 and hallucinations came into effect. I came home from Michigan to find that, once again, my best
friend was in the hospital. Tasha and I decided to visit her. We didn't know what to
expect nobody knew what was wrong, and, from what we heard, she kept getting worse. We walked into
the room to find her mother sitting beside an even smaller than normal girl with tubes sticking out
of every inch of her tiny arms. Her hair was frazzled and she looked pale and sweaty. Tasha had to
turn for a moment to keep her tears at bay, but all I could do was stare there was nothing else we
could do. After receiving little to no help from the hospital she was previously residing at, Kate
was transferred to one of the top hospitals in the state. I visited her frequently to make sure she
smiled. I would occasionally throw in a dumb joke only the two of us would laugh at, but we both
knew our time together might shorter than we had bargained for. I received a call one day from
Kate's older sister Lisa. She only needed to have said one thing: Lemiere's Syndrome. Finally
we knew what was eating away at my best friend's life. I sped to the hospital and ran straight to
her room in intensive care. Kate gave me the same mischievous smile she always had and told me she
had a blood clot in her jugular vein, pieces of which broke up and entered into her lungs, causing
double pneumonia. Had it entered her brain she would have died. Seeing as this was the 134th
reported case of the sickness in the country, Kate was used to explaining it multiple times. She
immediately was put on blood thinners and was instructed to give herself four shots in her
stomach every day for about two weeks. Homecoming came up fast, after Kate was stable enough to
come home and even go to school. Tasha took us both out from the dance, looked us straight in the
eyes and said, "I cannot even imagine what this would have been like without Kate." None of us
said a word after that as we quietly embraced each other. Kate is one of the most important people
in my life. We have gotten on each other's nerves, and even misunderstood one another, but there is
nothing that could ever change the fact that I love her so much and that I am thankful for everyday
she is with me. I am thankful for everyday she is alive.