In the words of her father, 23 year-old Elizabeth Clancy was "beautiful inside and out." She took gymnastics from the time she was three years old until she was eleven. A black belt in tae kwan do, she instructed in that martial art. She finished third in her high school class with a 4.0 average. She attended Colorado State University on scholarship and graduated in 1997 with a business degree. She worked 80-hour work weeks at a Houston investment banking firm; she was being groomed "to go places." Tremendous physical stamina fueled her accomplishments.
Elizabeth sought medical treatment in February, 1998 for right-sided chest pain which she associated with a minor traffic accident from the prior October. Her doctors removed approximately 500 ccs of fluid from the right pleural space.
Her condition worsened. Her doctors scheduled surgery to remove "scar tissue", which they believed resulted from trauma, from the right lung. Shortly after surgery began, Elizabeth's surgeon biopsied tissue for intraoperative frozen section analysis. After diagnosing mesothelioma, the surgeon removed Elizabeth's right lung.
Elizabeth and her parents searched for hope, for effective treatment, and found none. Elizabeth tried to work, to fight her disease. But she developed a violent cough, fatigue, and swelling in her abdominal region. Abandoned by an immature husband who could not handle the terrors of mesothelioma, she died in her parents' home at the age of 23. She leaves her loved ones with unspeakable anguish.
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