Belle Vie March Issue 3 Belle Vie March 2018 issue 3 | Page 56

Andrea

Andrade

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Interviewer: Hi, we have Andrea Andrade's boyfriend here and he's been through the struggle that she's been going through. Going through her colon cancer and he's been there for her through ... What do you call that? Help me out here. Chemotherapy. He's been through her chemotherapy. So how long have you guys been dating? How long have you been dating Andrea?

Javier: About seven years.

Interviewer: Wow! That's a long time. When this whole thing came about did you notice anything about her being ill or did you notice a rapid change? Did you detect something that was going on?

Javier: Before they diagnosed her, I remember she would tell me that she had some bleeding in her stool. So I knew that wasn't normal. I asked her to go to the emergency room before and the doctor kind of brushed it off. I don't know if it was a misdiagnosis but I think a few a weeks later was when she left on a trip that's when everything changed. She was in the hospital and that's when we found out.

Interviewer: When was this? When did this happen?

Javier: About a year ago actually.

Interviewer: How did this make you feel when you knew there was blood in the stool, and you wanted her to go to emergency. What did your instinct tell you?

Javier: Well I knew that there was definitely something wrong, because there shouldn't be any blood there. It was scary, it was very nerve wracking because she knew something might be wrong, but she didn't know what it was. And that's why we tried to get her to go to the hospital. Back then they told her it was nothing major, so it kind of calmed everything down but when she had to go again that's when it got a lot worse at that point.

Interviewer: At that time that happened, did any part of you think that you were going to lose her? I mean did that cross your mind?

Javier: Yeah, absolutely, because I wasn't there with her at that point. She was just texting me. Before she left, I already knew there was something wrong but they told us it was fine, but when that all happened everything came crashing down. You know what can you do, she was so far away and she's telling you that everything's fine, but you kind of know something is not right.

Interviewer: Where was she when this all happen?

Javier: She was in Mexico visiting family.

Andrea: I had a family funeral. My aunt had just passed away the night before. And so I was in Mexico at the time with my Grandma by ourselves, because I wanted to go accompany her and when we were out there. That's when I started feeling a lot of pain. It was actually on that Ash Wednesday also, last year. They had to take me to the hospital and left me overnight.

When I woke up at 4:00 am to use the restroom, I didn't even hit the toilet when three pints of blood just came out of me. Before I knew it, I was in another hospital unconscious. They couldn't find my blood, because apparently I'm an O negative. There was no blood for me and at this point they were calling my parents telling them she's not going to make it past tonight.

Interviewer: Wow. And you got that news too, Javier?

Javier: I didn't get that news. I was just being updated with what she was texting me. She say "I feel bad," or