Topic: An old friendship (??) bites the dust

Twenty years ago, I quit my job as an orthodontic assistant to have our first baby. One of the gals I worked with way back then just quit a few months ago and moved to Arizona. Linda is one of those people who does nothing but complain about her life. She had breast implants done about 22 years ago while I was working with her---going from a completely flat chest to a C cup. She's had a rocky life. Lost her two daughters to her ex after they were burned in the bathtub and child services got involved. Never married again and when she finally quit working for the orthodontist, she came back and smeared her own feces all over his car and that of another gal who worked there. (My husband and I just learned of that last week from the female victim.)

My husband has been emailing with Linda for the past few years, although she and I did not maintain contact. He saw her when he'd take our kids to the very same orthodontist--who gave us 50% off since I used to work there. DH told her about my breast cancer and although I tried a few times to contact her, no luck until one day, she sent me a photo of herself with her brand new D cup boobs and told me "Sandy, you need to go for D! You won't regret it! I couldn't even write back, because I was so stunned that she was totally disregarding the fact that I had cancer and could be so superficial.

Turns out that while I was in the hospital having my DIEP surgery two weeks ago, Linda sent my husband nude pictures of her new breasts, nipples and all. I lost it! I told him that I wanted all of the emails from around that time, because I needed to know how she came to send those pics, and I wanted to see his responses. He had permanently deleted them from his computer. I called Linda and told her that I wanted the emails that evening or I would contact AOL and report her. (They told me that they would close her account and block her permanently.)

Linda wrote me that night and said that she no longer has the amails. She then told me that she knew I'd always been envious of her implants and her "naturally slim figure". She sees nothing wrong with sending those photos of herself after I had just lost my hipples and unscarred breasts forever. I am incredulous that another human being could be so cruel. I made it clear to my husband that if he allows further contact from her, I am leaving. We both blocked email from her and I let her know that if she calls, I will immediately forward her photos to AOL's legal department so they can deal with her.

I thought about things most of the night and spoke to both my brother and sister about my feelings. They both encouraged me to forgive my husband and let go of the pain or Linda would get exactly what she was trying to accomplish. When he came downstairs in the morning, I told him that I wasn't going to allow Linda to harm or destroy our marriage.

I wrote to Linda that morning and informed her that we'd both blocked her from emailing us. I told her that I'd never lacked the money to have had implants if I wanted them for cosmetic purposes and that it was impossible to envy a person who was obviously so miserable in her own life.


I am still in shock that someone could be so clueless, so intently cruel during this crisis my family is enduring, so disgusting as to take those photos of herself and send them to my husband, knowing that I'd just chosen total mastectomies over lumpectomy...she is a witch with a capital B!!!!