Emily Dao sits cross-legged on the floor of the Delta Zeta house constructing a gingerbread house with a group of her sorority sisters. While she artfully paints a pink heart on the cookie roof and dots it with Wildberry Skittles, the girls gossip about guys, exams and the upcoming winter break.
Half the candies never make it to the house, though, and Emily takes spoonfuls of Betty Crocker rainbow icing in between giggles.
"My whole stomach is M&Ms and Skittles right now," she says, glancing up at a TV playing "The Holiday."
Armed with her solar-bright smile and confetti-sweet laugh, Emily, 20, enjoys such precious moments with her closest friends, but she's afraid too few nights like this remain.
Barely a month ago, doctors told the Fairfax native the stomach pains she'd been experiencing for almost 28 weeks had been caused by the uncontrollable growth of a tumor five inches in diameter that was blocking her colon. She has been diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer that has metastasized to her liver and lungs.
Emily shrieks as she notices the gingerbread house beginning to topple. She and her friends struggle to keep the building from sliding under the pressure of the thick layer of icing and candy on the roof. They prop up one side using a Milk Duds box as a support.
"I think it's working," Emily says.
After a few minutes waiting for the icing to set, the building appears to stand stable under its own sugary weight. Emily subtly grimaces, scratching underneath her gray sweater at her lower left abdomen, close to where a patch releases Fentanyl, a pain-reducing drug about 80 times more potent than morphine.
"How many DZs does it take to make a gingerbread house?" Emily asks, as she begins to count the girls in the room. "It took seven DZs two hours."
The gingerbread house is complete, and all the girls laugh at Emily's joke. It's her last night at Tech before she heads home for a job interview and a PET-scan in the morning. All the girls in the Delta Zeta sorority are aware their friend is gravely ill. But the topic of conversation that night never strays toward cancer. They all know what Emily's doctors have told her. She is too far along. There is little they can do to stop it.
Close to midnight some of the girls talk about getting ready for bed, but they stay in the room regardless, reluctant to leave Emily's buoyant presence.
In recent weeks Emily has had to face a mortal decision. Her doctors have explained if she foregoes chemotherapy she would have two to three months to live based on the late stage of her cancer. With chemo, she may expect anywhere between six and 12 months.
Would she do as her doctors suggested, taking some time to herself in order to travel the world? Or should she undergo agonizing chemotherapy for the next six months and be surrounded by her friends and family?
"I love you guys," Emily says to the girls around her.
EMILY'S JOURNEY
Emily's 3.95 grade point average is the highest among the 89 other active members at Tech's Delta Zeta chapter. As a double major in accounting and finance, she is in her third year at Tech but is academically a senior. She works hard in school in pursuit of her dream job at Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions management.
She hopes to participate in one of the internships she's been offered during the summer of 2009, which include Ernst & Young, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Earlier this semester she had been enrolled in 23 credits of classes but she dropped to 20 after the honors student realized she couldn't quite keep up with her normal load of classes. Everyday tasks exhausted her.
"I was just feeling really weak and really tired to the point where I couldn't walk to class and I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't take a shower," Emily said. "I would take 10 steps and I would get really lightheaded and really dizzy and feel like I was going to faint."
She decided to see a doctor back in August after complaining about her stomach pain and lack of energy. They performed blood work, but found nothing significant and couldn't pin down why she had stomach pain. Emily was told she was fine and there was nothing to worry about.
Two months later Emily could tell something was wrong. She went home Oct. 16th for an office visit with Deloitte, an accounting company. While home she felt compelled to seek a second opinion. The new doctor, Lee Blecher, noticed a discrepancy in the blood test results. The first doctor had not noticed her hemoglobin levels appeared low, the first indicator of anemia.
She underwent a series of tests to find what could be causing her sudden case of anemia. At first her doctors thought stomach ulcers, so they performed an endoscopy, MRIs and a CT scan on her abdominal area. Through these tests they noticed large spots which resembled tumors in her lower intestine. After an exploratory colonoscopy they found the five-inch tumor. They performed a biopsy on the mass and discovered it was cancerous.
The date was Nov. 7, the day she learned she was the victim of a cancer so rare in young adults that cases such as hers are practically unheard of. You couldn't blame the first doctor overlooking the thought of cancer, Emily said, because it was so rare.
"It was by coincidence that they found out that I had this. I was just lucky that I was very anemic," Emily said.
According to the National Cancer Institute, of the 88,754 of colon cancer cases among females between the years 2001 and 2005, just 89 were younger than 21. Every doctor she meets say she is the youngest patient they've ever had. She is also the first person in her family to ever get cancer.
The growth had been blocking her colon, trapping dangerous toxins inside her body. The doctors decided to immediately prep Emily for surgery in just a few days' time to remove the tumor and her entire colon. Her doctors said if they had discovered it even a day later she would have succumbed to her body's poisonous environment.
"I was just kind of numb to all of it, and I didn't really think much into it," Emily said. "I was like, 'Wow -- I can't believe this is happening.' And I guess I didn't really believe it for a while. And it's really hard for me to be emotional around my parents because I have to be strong for them because they are going through so much."
The doctors were skeptical she would even make it through the surgery because of her anemia. As Emily sat in the doctor's office processing the news with her mother, Thuy, and father, Chinh, she didn't know what to do, didn't know how to feel.
Emily reached out for support from her sorority sisters. She didn't want to make matters worse for her parents or her little sister, Brittany, 15, who is a sophomore at Oakton High School. But Emily needed to talk with friends she could trust about her imminent surgery and eventual decision to weather chemotherapy.
"I was just on the phone with everybody and that's when I just started crying," Emily said. "They are there for me and they understand I don't have to worry about burdening them with my problems. But with my family, because they are going through so much for me, it's so much harder to cry. I have to be strong for them. I have to be strong for my little sister, because if not my whole family is going to fall apart."
After talking with her friends Emily knew she'd made her choice. She found strength in the soothing voices of her sorority sisters. Despite the excruciating pain her doctors promised during chemotherapy, if it meant more nights making gingerbread houses, she was ready.
She just needed to survive emergency surgery.
WHAT NEXT?
The Delta Zeta sorority sisters wanted to help Emily, but they'd just learned that during the Nov. 11 surgery to remove the tumor and her colon, her lungs started to collapse and they had to abort midway through the procedure. While surgeons successfully removed the growth, they only took out a third of her colon. She will have to undergo further surgery to remove the damaged organ at a date that has not yet been determined.
Her friends felt powerless. They rushed to organize a philanthropic venture. On Nov. 17 they hosted the "Down for Dao" event in her honor at the TCBY on Main Street. TCBY pledged to give proceeds from the night's sales to pay for Emily's medical expenses. Even in frosty weather, lines for the store stretched down the street and Delta Zeta collected roughly $1,200 from tips and donations during the event.
"That's what my sorority is raising money for, they are trying to raise money for my medical expenses because I am choosing to continue with chemo and continue on with surgeries," Emily said. "Just trying to see, have hope that everything's going to be fine."
But Emily is unsure what donations will fund. Her doctors said she should travel and enjoy the time she has left. As a first-generation American, maybe she'll go to Asia, perhaps to Vietnam, the country of her parents' origin.
"I'd want to go to as many countries as I want, because, just before, at one point in my life I've wanted to go travel the world and see the places I haven't been before," Emily said.
Her sorority sisters still feel unsure of how to deal with Emily's situation. Emily appears normal some days, lethargic others. Overall, though, Emily's demeanor has been pleasant and positive.
"It's almost surreal to us. We know how serious it is, but when you talk to her you don't think about that," said Tory Huber, a junior accounting major and Emily's sorority sister. "When she first told us everything it was so hard, it was almost hard to believe her because she was just so nonchalant about it. I had a hard time grasping everything, and I felt like she like made it sound like it was nothing."
Emily's friends are guardedly aware of her unfortunate prognosis. They try to remain cautiously optimistic, believing in Emily's strength and fortitude, especially after overcoming the odds in her first surgery.
"The first surgery, the doctors basically told her she had a very slim chance surviving it, but she did," said Nicole Wattelet, a sophomore international affairs and Spanish major and Emily's Delta Zeta "little sister." "And just like looking at her now, she doesn't even look sick at all."
"One day I hadn't talked to her for like 36 hours or something and you think the worst. It sucks to have to be like that," Huber said. "Some of the times I'm talking to her and I just feel like it's another day. And then I get off the phone and I'm like, 'That could be the last time.' You don't want to think like that, but it's like that could be the last time I talk to her."
Emily has spent half of this semester at her home in Fairfax, recovering and recuperating from surgery. She returned to Tech Nov. 30 to pack some things, see her friends for a short break, but then left Dec. 3 to start treatments.
Ideally Emily would like to return to Tech next semester for classes, but is waiting to see how chemotherapy will affect her. Before she got sick, Emily said she used to sleep just a few hours a night and stay up studying for her unusually large load of classes. Nowadays, the pain medications make her sleepy. She sleeps between 14 and 20 hours a day depending upon how she's feeling.
"I'm always in pain. It always hurts. Even when I take medications it's still going to hurt," Emily said, who, besides the potent Fentanyl patches, has also been prescribed Vicodin to take as needed, ibuprofen, and anti-nausea medication to counteract the heavy dosage. "Being at school I'd rather be able to go out and function around my friends instead of being in bed all day. So it's just a trade off."
But when pain medications fall short, she's got her friends to help her. Because friendship, she assures, is sometimes the best medicine.
"My body is still really hurting a lot right now, and I feel really sick, and I throw up everyday. But just having my friends and my family there for me everyday, especially my sisters -- they contact me every single day and they are there for me every time I'm sad and I'm crying," Emily said. "Every time I lose hope and I'm really sad they are so supportive of me and there for me, and they start telling me funny stories; they tell me things that are exciting and all the new gossip that's going on on campus and they just really bring up my spirits and that's the only reason why I'm choosing to go through it. I just feel so lucky to have them in my life and that's why I want to keep on going and keep on fighting this."
"THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO."
While their dear friend struggles through each day, some of the girls in Delta Zeta are realizing Emily's battle against cancer is affecting them, too.
Huber's grandfather died of colon cancer
"The fact that he died of colon cancer I guess kind of scares me. And that's the reality of it I guess. But, I really don't feel like I've come to terms with it," Huber said. "I know that there's a chance she's not going to be around, but it's just hard for me because this is the first person I've actually had to deal with going through cancer, watching suffer like this. And that's the hardest part, knowing that that's my friend and there is nothing I can do for her as far as making her feel better."
Before discovering she had cancer, Emily complained of severe stomach pain. Her Oak Lane Delta Zeta housemates often heard her talk about the pain. But Emily usually seemed to shrug it off.
"Earlier in the semester she'd be saying these things and everybody's like, 'Oh, Emily is complaining again,'" Huber said. "You almost feel bad that you didn't take her more seriously. You just don't think of something that bad happening to someone our age."
For the meantime, though, her sisters are content to not dwell on the past -- and are just as comfortable ignoring the future. During Emily's short visit back to Tech last week, they bombarded Emily with cakes, ice cream and girls' nights filled with fashion magazines and romantic movies.
"We want to keep things normal as possible; we want to give her other things to think about, other things to talk about. It gets hard, because that's her life right now, trying to get better and I think the more she thinks about it the more upset she gets," Huber said. "I think a lot of us have tried not to ask too many questions because if she has her mind off it you don't want to bring that back up."
But keeping their friend in such high spirits isn't a chore. Oftentimes it's not even necessary. The girls of Delta Zeta often forget their friend Emily is sick. Whenever schoolwork bogs Wattelet down, she knows exactly whom to call.
"She just gives the best motivational advice: 'Trust me it's going to get better, I went through it, it's going to get better everyday.' It's just that everything she's going through she sits there and she's like giving me advice and helping me through something when she's going through something so much worse," Wattelet said. "She always makes me happy. She makes me smile, no matter what. Just going through this it just amazes me how positive she's been. Just laughing all the time and joking all the time, I don't think I could be like that."
"I know if I were in that situation I'd be crying all the time," Huber said. "I'd just be a disaster but, I mean, she understands how serious it is, and she knows that she really doesn't have that much time and everything like that but she's not giving up hope and that's probably the best thing about it ... she hasn't really let having cancer hold her back."
Now room 208 in the Delta Zeta house is unoccupied. Emily's sheets remain, along with some of her books for classes. But the sensation of its foreboding emptiness is disconcerting for some of her sorority sisters.
"It's just weird because she's part of your everyday life, and she's not there all the time. It's weird when there are times when you know I'd be doing something and I'd go up to talk to her, go tell her something, and she's not in her room," Huber said. "You try so hard to tell her you know you're going to be back, you're going to be here."
Wattelet would prefer not to think about a future without Emily. She already misses the nights painting each other's toenails or snuggling in Emily's bed and watching "Gossip Girls." Next year Wattelet will live with Emily in a four-bedroom apartment at The Chase. They handed in their leases last week.
"If I stay positive it helps her," Wattelet said. "So I just try not to think about the future at all. I don't even want to think about her not being here. All that's in my mind is 'OK, she needs to take six months of chemo and then, like she said, coming back here to live downtown and go downtown next year.' That's all I think about, I don't think about anything bad."
EMILY'S STORY ISN'T OVER
Emily began chemotherapy yesterday. She started biweekly chemo treatments at her oncologist's office about 20 minutes from her house in Fairfax. As a treatment, chemotherapy basically destroys cells without discretion, cancerous cells and healthy cells alike -- it's akin to fighting fire with fire. The process is extremely violent on the human body. Occasionally, the treatment itself can lead to death.
"I'm just very scared about the whole process because I don't know how it's going to be yet." Emily said. "Even getting a cold could kill me."
Emily is keenly aware of chemotherapy's reputation but has accepted the risks because, for her, they are outweighed by the rewards. Quite simply, she said she'd rather have the time with her friends and family than not.
Emily's sorority sister's say they are resolutely by her side throughout this battle.
They plan to make "Down for Dao" T-shirts to sell, and set up a PayPal account so that people can donate electronically.
A committee has been formed within the chapter to compose letters to celebrity colon cancer advocates, such as CBS evening news anchor Katie Couric, whose husband died of colon cancer, as well as Sharon Osbourne, wife of singer Ozzy Osbourne and colon cancer survivor. They will also write a letter requesting $1 from every active Delta Zeta member nationwide.
Huber and the other Delta Zeta sisters try to keep a positive outlook on Emily's battle. Emily's struggle with cancer is as much a talked about subject as it is not.
"I don't really think we've actually sat there and said, 'Emily might not be back.' I think we're all kind of hoping for the best. But we all don't really want to look at it like that. But I think saying it just makes it so much more real," Huber said. "It's hard. It's weird. You look at it like she has time to say goodbye to everybody if at the end she's going to die."
Emily's story is not finished. Though her chances of surviving cancer appear slim, Emily has discovered that with her sorority's support, she is filled with hope.
"I have hope that I'm going to make it. I'm only 20 years old -- I'm too young," Emily said with a laugh. "I have too much more that I have to do."