Melanie Woiwode's Past 20 Years

By now, everyone has heard about our classmate Melanie's recent, heartbreaking death. However, I thought it would be good for all of us to read about what she focused on. Her life.

Her friend Sue O'Reilly was kind enough to write this up, sharing Melanie's last 20 years with us. Thank you, Sue.

After high school, Melanie finished her business degree at Cal Poly SLO and then moved up the the SF bay area. She worked for Forrester market research and then worked for Oracle. Melanie settled into a great apartment on Bush St. in San Francisco that she shared with a few different roommates over the course of 7 years.

After Oracle, Melanie worked for a smaller software company (as was required of all SF residents in the late ‘90s). While living in SF Melanie continued her athletics, swimming, biking, running, doing triathalons and road races. She built up a large group of friends from college, work, athletic events, and through social life in San Francisco.

While living in SF, she traveled whenever she could. Melanie had an adventurous spirit and loved traveling, seeing new places and meeting new people.

After approximately 7 years in northern CA, Melanie decided to take a longer adventure – and she moved to London in the fall of 2001. Because Melanie’s parents were born in Germany, Mel was able to work it out so that she could legally work in the UK/Europe. Melanie worked for Neilsen ratings in London. She shared a flat in Putney Hill with a roommate that became a dear friend, Liz. While living in the UK Melanie continued with her athletics and travel. With the vacation in the UK being more generous than in the US – Melanie was able to travel to many, many different countries. She was able to re-connect with some relatives in Germany and she made many great, new friends abroad.

In the summer of 2003, Melanie was noticing that her workouts were increasingly difficult and she was experiencing a lot of swelling in her legs. At first glance the physicians said “maybe it is swelling because of the heat” and Melanie thought “well...…I am from LA, I don’t think that the London heat is getting to me”. She was then scheduled for a CT scan – but – tragedy struck at home. She received a phone call that her parents had been killed in an accident. So, Melanie flew home to southern CA to be with her two sisters and brother and grieve their parents. When Melanie returned to the UK a month later, she had her CT scan and was diagnosed with a leiomysarcoma (http://www.leiomyosarcoma.info/ ) tumor in her inferior vena cava. This was blocking blood flow from her lower extremities back up to her heart and causing the swelling. Melanie had surgery to remove the tumor & part of the vena cava. This was a major surgery – and she was a trooper. Her sibilings and friends took turns flying over to the UK to be with her before, during and after the surgery.

Melanie was a shining star at the hospital. The doctors, nurses and other patients adored her. Melanie was quite happy to have a handsome doctor who “was not hard on the eyes” as she described. That was Mel, even in the face of crisis – she focused on the positive.

After Melanie was released from the hospital, she build her strength back up and was back to exercising and traveling as soon as she could. For the past three years, she went through various treatments to try to stop the cancer – all the while making the most out of everyday and out of what she could do. The sarcoma was aggressive and eventually metastasized to her liver and to her spine. Even with that, Melanie pushed on – swimming and biking because those activities caused the least amount of pain.

Melanie never focused on her pain and situation – she focused on living life the best she could, on her adventures and on her friends and family.

Sadly, even with her courage, strength and positive outlook, the cancer won the final battle. Melanie took a turn for the worse in February, when she returned home to the US to be with her family. Melanie passed away at her sister’s house in California on May 31, 2007. As one of Melanie’s friends wrote on her tribute page, “On May 31st the world lost an amazing person. Everyone who was lucky enough to have known her is a better person today. I know I am.”

Again, if you wish to go to Melanie's Tribute blog, the link is in the post below. If you go to the comments section, you can read people's thoughts and feelings about Melanie. Many of you have posted messages already. Thank you for sharing.

All of the information for her service this Saturday is also posted below.

Amy