old and hardened? or just disillusioned...

got sent a link from one of my gors thru icq outta the blue...
hadn't talked to him in months, if not years.

the little icq window croaked rrriiibbitt and up popped this message:

You have a received a URL request.
URL: http://www26.brinkster.com/dreamgalaxy/tears_in_my_heart.html
URL's description: sWeet loVe sToRY :~~(

now usually, i don't click on fowarded url links. especially wHen ThEy ArE TyPed LIkE tHis. this time was different.. i think it was cuz i was curious about the combination of "sweet" and the sad face, curious to see how sad and tragic this sob love story could be. i'm morbid eh?

well after reading the essay, i did feel a little sinking feeling in my heart. i don't know how true this story is but it's very plausible. most likely, the news that a girl, a pretty girl to boot, has contracted this life-threatening disease and has passed away would have whizzed through the grapevines. especially since i was in my first year of jc the year titanic opened in singapore. would've been someone in either my year or the year above and news eventually floats around despite having sources at different schools. SOOOOooo.. i'm not dissing the credibility of the story because if this was a true story, i'm really sorry to hear of the bittersweet ending and i can't even begin to imagine what her friends and family would've gone through during those dark days of grief. so i treaded carefully... i asked my gor where he got the link from, half hoping he wouldn't say it was a true story of someone he knew or was close with. was relieved to hear he got it from a fren and he hoped it wasn't true too. [ah, so he's at least as far removed from the protagonists of the story as me.]

yet, with a wry smirk directed at myself, i found little lightbulbs flashing at the back of my mind in the midst of getting comfy in a sad + emphathetic mood when slorr mentioned that she had erysipelas. there on after, the nagging question of "what is that disease??" bugged me as i squizzed thru the rest of the story. "is it contagious? what are the clinical signs and symptoms? wonder if there's a cure? where'd she get it from? how'd she get it?" shut up u med freak! i tell myself..i knew fully well that she wasn't gonna make it about a minute into reading and that the saddest bit that's meant to be the tear-jerker was yet to come yet i remained slightly cynical til my mind was put to rest of what erysipelas consisted of when i did a google search. bless dear google, what would i do without it!

what i found gave me more doubts about the amount of truth in the story.

• classical symptoms include butterfly rash [check. she had that] spreading across the bridge of the nose [uh-oh. she had it at the back of her neck. mebbe she had a rare form of it] that progresses rapidly without treatment [*mad rapid clinking of retired math brain cells trying to figure out the timeline of the story* 2 months since first meeting but she knew beforehand because she was already talking weird. she passed away at most, 5 months later. now, this disease presents with an angry rash that hurts, gives u fever aches and pains. i think it's a reasonable assumption to make that she would've sought medical advice within a week of the rash/symptoms not subsiding, no?].

• 70 - 80% of rashes occur @ lower body, 5 - 20% of rashes occur @ face one site reports...[her's was at her neck and spread to her face tho. mebbe it's a rare form. mebbe its's a rare form]

• prognosis is excellent [mebbe it's a rare form. mebbe it's a rare form]

• more common in females for some unknown reason [check. she's female]

• not common in asia [mebbe it's a fluke.. mebbe it's a rare form]

i'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing... or if i can even label it in such black and white terms. this referring to that constant desire to be shown proof, shown evidence, to constantly question and analyze ...i kinda miss it when things could be taken at face value and one wasn't called naive or gullible. *shrug* mebbe i've got it all wrong but learning to distrust seems to be an integral part of growing up. maybe not distrust per se.. being more discerning perhaps would be a better word? and to think, there are all these little kiddies who can't wait to be grown up... been there, done that. i'm haven't even started taking my first step into the real world and i'm already tired ...