Lifestyles of the poor and nameless

I've known my best friend for about 7 years. For the past three years, he's had a problem with his nerves; sometimes his hands shake uncontrollably. He is 5'11 and weighs 142 lbs., down from 155 a year ago. For some reason, he just keeps losing weight and is starting to look frail. Since he didn't have health insurance, he never got checked out. Well, he finally got insurance and went to the doctor. He had several blood tests done to determine the problem.

Last night, I got an email from him (the longest email he's ever sent me), which basically said that he got the results of his blood work and he has bone cancer. He did not say what the prognosis was, but judging by the fact that he was "saying goodbye", I assumed that the outlook was bleak. In the email, he asked me not to speak to any of our friends about it, because he wasn't ready to share the news. I felt physically weak, and I kept reading it over and over to make sure it was real. I cried when understanding finally set in. He's only 26 years old. It's never a good thing to hear that your friends are seriously ill, but it always seems cruel to find out that someone so young could be facing death.

After I managed to compose myself somewhat, I called him. We talked about it for about 35 minutes. I couldn't help myself, I started to cry again. He said if I didn't stop crying, then he would start. So I told him I had to get off the phone. Just as I was about to go, he said "Wait. How does it feel to be punked?"

I thought that maybe he was trying to lighten the atmosphere by pretending it wasn't real. I got off the phone. He called me back about 40 minutes later and said that he's sorry, the whole thing was just a joke. "April Fool!". Never mind the fact that there's nothing funny at all about cancer, and April Fool's Day was 2 days prior.

My emotions turned 180 degrees. Who the f!@# makes a joke like that? He types slow as hell, so I know it must have taken him a good 30 minutes to write that email. Didn't his conscience kick in at any time and tell him that it's just plain wrong to joke about death? Suppose I would have read that and had a heart attack? On one hand, I'm glad to know that he's not really sick. On the other hand, I'm extremely hurt and disappointed that he would make a "joke" like that with anybody, especially me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. True to form, the angrier I became, the more defensive he became. It got to the point where at times he was yelling "I said I was sorry!". With all the drama I'm dealing with from the car accident and work, this was really the last thing I needed.

It's shocking how fast trust can be lost. Once the dust settled, the sole thought in my head was: "I never would have thought him capable of something sick like that...but he did it. And if he could do that, do I really want to stick around and see what else he's capable of?" It's one thing for a friend to borrow your favorite possession and completely wreck it. You'll be upset, but accidents happen, and you'll get over it. It's a completely different story for a friend to hijack your emotions by feigning terminal illness, under the guise of a "joke". It seems crazy to think that 7 years of friendship can be eliminated with one sophomoric act. Maybe I just need to sit on it for a while.