Chapter 1 — Amanda is Dying
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What you are about to hear is a true story. IT all begins in twenty twelve. You might remember twenty twelve as the year the curiosity rover landed red on mars.

All the year that gang nam died took over the the internet. Maybe you remember the hunger games matching the box office for me. I remember the twenty twelve london olympics. Being surprised because this is the last night here at london.

So are you writing?

IT was such a big moment in my career as a broadcast journalist. A dream come true, really, is to host the olympic games. And in my home country, since then, i've gone on to present some of the world's biggest events.

And as a journalist, how many extraordinary stories, including this one? Lucky really, because also that year you probably remember that the world was supposed to end. I don't remember exactly why I was supposed to end, but twenty twelve was supposed to be IT for all of us.

Well, I can definitely say whoever thought that was very clearly wrong, but for one Young woman living just outside of san hua, california, twenty twelve was the year her world would turn completely upside down. Late that year, a brand new blog popped up on a website called blog spot. The home page heading was simple. My story, our journey, a post appeared.

What the heck is hodja sin mbo? A my goal with this blog is to not only keep friends and family in the loop, but serve as a resource to all those newly diagnosed doctors. Don't provide great detail information, and the internet is not your friend when you're diagnostic with the disease. I have hodges kingsland bala and it's been quite .

the journey .

to figure IT out the author AManda, see you rally. I'm charlie webster. You're listening to sander.

Ma ma Riley, A M A N D A R I L E Y I work on the campaign, the kim la foma society. And i'm also a stage for refractory blood cancer patient AManda.

then twenty seven, had just given beer to her first child. AManda's blog post are read by actor candle horn.

Before I was pregnant, they diagnosed me with loop. Is the diagnosis stuck for quite a while? After a Carter, our son, was born, my blood count dropped so dramatically that I threw another flag.

It's hard to imagine what is like for AManda, the joy of becoming a mother ruby interactive by some heart ranching news. Her life will never be the same again.

After a vat of tests, I was diagnosed with huge kinsler, former.

Back then, the blog was the dominant way to express yourself and reach of public audience. Instagram was still being used to share rainy filter photos of your vacation. In fact, hurry styles joined that year, and his first post was a grainy filter of photo of a bunch of deer in a field.

mr. Obama signed up for her own twitter account and posted, hi everyone, tiktok didn't exist. Bloggers with the original influences and amended sy Riley was beginning to build her own online following by sharing her cancer journey with other Young people affected by hudgins slm former.

I am currently in a support group for Young adults facing a stem cell bone area transplant. We have to write letters to loved ones to be given out of the big bad sea wins. We have to write an unobtainable ten dream bucket. I'll start with my time pocket list. One witnessed the northern lights while staying.

and he was putting out his blog like a weekly couple times as a week. And IT was really like a soap. Popper was very easy to get sucked into the to the riding of IT too.

That is very dying doctor IT, and finally become doctor rightly. Three, take my husband, Carry on the field to meet the forty nine years. Four.

take my kids to, right after he had a first child. They run some tastes. And that's when they find out IT was like the pregnant y was masking IT. Or there was some confusion that they couldn't figure out, but they figured that out. I was like, okay, you gotto brand new baby and you have cancer.

Just my scattered thoughts. Glad we finally have a diagnosis. Survival rates for hodgkins are out.

Stay in. I have amazing friends and family to get me through this. God is good, and everything happens for a reason.

And that's where .

I kind of found out about IT. I went straight the blog. I just remember like walking to the airport, going up the escalator in tears, things like, how is this happening? I mean, I just remember thinking, my god, is anybody safe from this?

AManda? In her husband, cory, needed help with a new baby. They enlisted the support of a woman named mahathir who run a daycare out of her home. When I spoke to a hasty, her fourth grandbaby had just arrived .

and spending time with my grandbaby. That's how i'm doing today. Yeah.

how you grandbaby .

almost two weeks old.

congratulation.

Thank you.

That's very new. Yes.

my has to run her daycare for almost thirty two years.

I picked and choose my of parents to be in my house. I was picky who comes to my house.

who does not.

When AManda and cory walk to my house, they were really nice. I saw, wow, what a good looking couple. And they seem like they have their .

life together.

They came for interview. SHE was persuading the baby and Carry came in, you know, I wanted to see if she's comfortable sitting there feeding the baby, breast feeding the baby. So he came, mean them, you know, sad. Inside the house we talk IT was a good conversation, you know, really .

comfortable SHE .

love that baby. Month or two months then been coming to my house that one day they came. They are all dressed up like sunday suit.

all of them.

And they walked in, I said, what's going on? And they said, AManda has a doctor appointment. And they laughed. And then next thing you know, the word cancer came out that he has cancer and they're gonna go be going for treatment. So that's how you started the whole thing.

I have the best husband anyone can ask for, worried how I will affect my friends, family cory, but especially the new baby Carter and my bone starter jasa.

I just remember um we're actually in the car on our way of church and um a man has started crying over this song that was playing and I was like, what's wrong? What's wrong and like that when he told me that when .

I told me what .

did he say.

I don't remember exactly how the conversation went. My dad was timing and and everything too, but he just told me that he was sick. And this .

can .

be a rough ahead.

This is jess AMandas, now nineteen year old, stepped ughi. The AManda .

mostly referred to her as bonuses.

Married man called coral.

my amazing husband. He's my rock, my shoulder, my secret keeper.

Cory had a daughter from his previous marriage. The offer mentioned bonus daughter sa.

I remember amand saying shoes and pain, and SHE just didn't feel good.

A man sustained her .

Better old days. SHE could not, couldn't get out of bed. I was heartbreaking. He was my, my family, and I wanted nothing more than for her to just be shoppy and healthy, be able to do the things he wants to do.

Was I like you?

I was there at.

Jess, I had already witnessed what cancer can do to a look.

One, I knew that my sister had cancer, and that was really hard for her. And I didn't know what to expect. I don't know what he was. Gonna jasa has .

an older half sister called Jimmy, who was diagnosed with cancer when the two girls were only Young. To understand how a Manda fits into these girls lives, we have to rewind about ten years.

I was diagnosed with cancer when I was A.

This is Jimmy, the half sister. Jammy has a different father to gesa, not curry, but they have the same mom.

The first thing that I was worried about with my hair, because I knew that was the only thing I knew about being sick, having cancer, was that I was gonna SE my hair IT was beautiful and IT was tough. IT was James .

is battle with cancer that first brought AManda into gesa. And jams lives ten years before AManda herself was diagnosed. Their mom, a litter, was looking for ways to create some Normality for both girls.

My daughter Jimmy had luke mia. Jimmy was going through her treatment, and he was constantly europeana, which means basically could not be around anybody. SHE couldn't get sick. So he was in the house of .

a college student. AManda, then just seventeen, turned up on a latest radar.

I know somebody who does july at the gym really, really like her. And I said, OK, well, let me talk to her. So talk to phone. And AManda started coming over and teaching Jimmy Cherry leading SHE. Just kind of almost like, click right in with family.

Would you like when you feel my hat?

SHE was really sweet. You know, she's Young. He was seventeen. Just a really nice girl, did you? Like, yeah, I did like her.

SHE would come out on our boat, out on the lake and the kids later just, I think at the time, was really six months old. She's a little thing. So the cut gives you like how long she's been in our lives. That's how I made of yona, and that's how a family met of .

yona at the time. A litter was married to Carry. Yes, the same cory, just as dad, jasa felt like he gained another cool big sister when a man came into their lives.

The sounds weird, but when I was growing up, amount really did feel like a big sister take us out to go shopping and get her nails done. I thought I was all very nice as a kid. You, I mean, and so I just automatically lector SHE asked me, how is feeling about things with mom and dad and however thing's going, and yes, school just overall life.

Jimmy felt the same about AManda.

Ama would come over and teach me how to dance and do to reading and stuff in. I I looked up to her like, I really liked those interactions that we had. Like he was a friend to me at the time. Obviously, you so much older than me, I looked after her. He was my my body.

If anybody could understand what AManda was about to face, IT was jammy. She'd already been through her own intense battle.

I always try to look at everything positively. And i've been like that since I was a kid. I've always been a bright side of the, you know, brighter side of things, kind of person, but IT sucked. At first I was a shock.

I was .

holding on to my hair. But once that chemo really took its course, IT was just coming out. And IT was clumps and clumps.

And I was to the point where i'd go to bed, and then I wake up and lift my head off the pillow, and there would just beat locks of hair on the pillow. So we eventually made the decision to save IT off. So IT wasn't a such .

a mess that first.

since I was like, this is really meat rubbing my head and on my bold head really sucks. When people would call me a little boy, he'd always be like talking to my mom whatever was like, oh, him, he am a girl down IT try wear as much as much pink and Sparkles as possible and not, I still got quite a little little boy. I think two years, I was two years when I was too sick to go back to school. May tenth of two thousand and five was my, what I say is my final day of recovery saw a treatment and stuff after that, but that's when I got my tubes out, and that was a big day.

And so what was life like when you went back to school?

I definitely felt different from the other kids. And for me, like what I went there was was Normal for me at the time. Like it's all I known is my life and what i've gone through this is part of who I am.

I didn't really share, even with my family, on a sad and really share too much about what I was going through. I feel like when I got Better, we just kind of picked up the pieces as a family and like, moved on. But there was a lot for me that I was so, so i'm so proceed.

I didn't know how to address. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know what to do with what I was feeling like.

I was just lost. AManda was seventeen or eighteen, and SHE started coming around. SHE treated me great.

I was still in treatment. My hair was growing back. I was sick, but I was healing.

SHE taught us cheer and dancing and stuff. SHE was just a good friend to us. He'd take us to build a bear.

SHE worked to build a bear at the time. We would go to her dorm. We'd go hang out, watch movies to do her hair and makeup. SHE was very much A A good role. Mall, a good, you know, positive influence on me.

How old do you do at that time?

Probably anywhere between eight and, like ten years old, somewhere around there? He was over for birthday parties, and every two. I was actually just looking at a picture, my tenth birthday.

That was my final year of battling my cancer, and she's right there at a picture of me sitting on her lap on my tent. Birthday SHE really was every, you know, birthday party. This is that stuff like SHE was around there with us.

a litter mom. Gale was supporting the family as best he could when a man a started come into the house.

SHE was giving jammy cheer lessons we matter with the leader helps at her her her dance. They did mars in je school. So SHE was being home school, barely that. So having a made to come did jane a um analogue and SHE did IT with her cousins.

we were .

thrilled, we were impressed that they added that he take the time to do this for a sid child. You know, did you we have a positive that time.

How would you describe .

her jy ballet girl, a man that seem like a really good kid, to be honest.

As a Young teenager, AManda was having a positive influence on sisters s. Jimmy and jester. But the opposite was happening within the family dynamic. Cory seemed to favor his biological child, Jesse, over gaming, and things are breaking down between him and a litter.

I don't think things were a right when Jimmy really give anything to do with them. Something was wrong with there. I would go over and he would fix dinner for film in java, but he did not take dinner for Jimmy. IT was upsetting to .

me very that's .

when I first, I guess, got a not a very good time from corry that that was just not a good time at all at all.

He would just favor her more. And like everything revolved around gesa and like easter would come around at Christmas and stuff and we'd get like little things. But then here comes just as present and it's this like shy and thoughtfully put together like it's this big boysterous present and like, oh, well, thanks still. I guess like I don't know it's it's a tough spot because you don't want to to feel unappreciative but at the same time, like you can tell who the favorite is unlike you could just feel IT just built not right.

Surely after that, my god has called me and says Chris leaving chorus living and he's taking my daughter jasa.

They would like bigger and fight like any couple does my mom and Carry but nothing like super alarming to us kids anyways, to me. But one day he just showed up with a 油耗 and a trash bag had just started taking stuff and said he was leaving like there was no conversation leading up for anything。 He just kind of came and started packing up the stuff and said not on leaving. But IT was, after choring in my mom divorced that that friendship started between cory and AManda and then AManda. We really became the party of the family when he married my sister's dad, which was odd to me too.

Yeah, you heard IT, right? Despite the twelve year age gap, cory got together with a maner after cory in a later split. B, what did you think when cory got with a mother?

I thought I was weird itself. Like SHE was introduced, our family, knowing that he was married to my mom. You know that a marry man and you know the family like you are I guess I wouldn't go as far saying like heart of the family, but you're I guess no.

he was.

It's just weird to think about the how everything panned ed out and how do you how are you invited into someone's home to be a friend to their kid? You know, take the matter, dance and all that stuff. You taking care of the kid three amount time, and then just a couple years later, you married that man.

I took his member of the work and the alternate the best I could to keep things together and put things together, her sister kin, and help her out. When he left a leader he wanted just to himself.

How did that affect lisa?

April heard to close to a right down. SHE went through to, I would say, at least three or four years. And then we keep and grew her together. IT was right. We did everything we could tell help.

Cori got divorce a Manda and cory, I guess, started flooding back and forth coring in the mander, I think .

controlling is apart.

So as we're talking about IT, but IT is very strange talking about IT.

What why is strange? He's talking about IT.

You know, my daughters were here, so I trying to, I don't really want to say the bad, but you know.

despite everything that had gone on between a litter and cory, a litter didn't feel right. Speaking bad about cory in front of their daughter. Gesser jasa is so often happens with children when parents split up, was caught in the middle of her dance new relationship with a moner. Never mind the fact that he now had to deal with her childhood friend becoming her step mom .

as soon as they got together. A man, if he came very overbearing and really did step into that black parent figure. But IT was, IT was a lot.

I wasn't .

used to that with her. And so IT was just really .

weird to me.

And my first heard the news. I'm like, what like I would never imagine in a million years now.

Lander, I call and ask what we are doing and how the kids are.

whatever. So see you and the kids. S I.

I was hang out over with clear if you are to be you. That's just all there, still IT just done. Then all of a sudden, one day, I get paperwork from the court saying that they want full custody of justice. I called AManda and I said, because i'm thinking, you know, she's gonna on my side with this because i'm the mom, why would anybody you know, i'm saying, what why is he filing for full custody of justice? SHE goes, well, we just think you'd be Better if you've over here when I excuse me oh.

I lost IT with her. What do you say?

Call her a bitch. And probably a little more than that, you know, because it's like, how can you do that? You're supposed to be my friend. You know, there was every issues with choring our arguing about something. I be like a man can straight him out, please know, joking around, strain him out and you know and SHE like all you talk to him, figure this out so I was kind of like he was most .

like the go between and .

between .

see ah a little did yes until they .

wanted full custody .

and you know I just felt like I was a stab in my bed.

I just kind of remember hearing more that court things were going on as time went on and more court dates started join up. I just remember things getting mess er like first I I started off by being alienated from my mom. Things just became a lot more complicated from that point on, and things just weren't really the same with my dad.

Anda IT was around this time that a litter found out that AManda had cancer.

I believe cory told me, and of course, like my heart just fell apart because I took care of a daughter for two years and nine months who went through chemo, and it's not a fun thing and I know that they had some trials .

ahead of them a little to emailed her.

retorted y with the news. This was to my attorney september twenty twelve. Just wanted to say hi, i've been working and just dealing with the stress of life.

Laugh out loud. I am not sure if you know, not sure if cory told you, but AManda was diagnosed with length. A SHE will have surgery on october third and then will undergo chemotherapy after that.

Just will probably have a lot going on in her little mind. SHE knows that Jamie had cancer and got through IT just that was little and i'm sure he does not remember, but he knows what her sister went through. I feel bad for them. I know you've been waiting for me to get you the information on the checks I ve paid to korean .

AManda were going through financial difficulties so a letta was paying child support even though they had joined custody of ja. A court battle was still ongoing because korean AManda wanted focus today.

And of course, I was really about how jasa was going to get through this as well. You know, try to put differences side. IT doesn't matter at that point.

Cancer, cancer, if somebody y's going to die, you're gone to do everything you can, to try to make everything run. lutely. You know what I mean?

This was also taking a toll on AManda. SHE took to her blog to talk about how he was feeling.

My mind was so foggy. E, and everywhere else besides where I wanted IT to be, I was so tired from all the hospital doctor's visits, trying to figure out finances, a teevan total eu that has recently decided not to sleep the night, and dealing with a really invasive, exhAusting custody court situation to protect my beautiful bonus daughter.

The bonus daughter that AManda refers to, again is her stepdaughter, gesa and even with the friction in the family over her custody, they all felt for what AManda was going through even just as grandmother gale.

Yeah with the backdoor with you know we pray for our we just um cared to see anybody go through that. But it's hard that aren't not a easy thing to go to.

Well, i've homeless, made IT through the first week of chemo, and I got home. I mostly slept and slept. The vomiting was pretty riddled, but thankfully only lasted about the hospital.

The second day, I felt like I had the world's worst flu day. Three is my arch enemy. I get to threw headaches, body aches and stabbing stomach pains in the mix.

James, what was IT like when you first found out AManda had .

got answer for me when I was sick, I didn't understand what was going on. At first, I didn't realize how sick I was. The whole gravity of IT didn't really set in with me as a kid because it's a lot.

All of this was happening to me. I didn't fully understand IT, but I remember thinking, like AManda's grown going through this, like he knows what's ahead. That's scary. So I remember just feeling very scared for her and sorry for her because I know what it's like.

I mean, you have to have some kind of sympathy, right? I just started crying. I was literally in my room and I had these stupid papers in my hand.

at least a cold, AManda, to try and smoothing over and end the infighting.

I loved my daughter. Like why can't we share her? Why can't we all just share her? There's no reason, there's no reason we couldn't have all co parenting together. Not zero IT was that very phone call that IT just literally turned everything like turn IT around. It's like once things didn't go her away, then everything just oneself.

Sharing was off the table, so the custody battle dragging on with no end in sight. But AManda's cancer brought her coy and gesa closer together as a family.

A big thank you to just a my little rockstar for being so supportive and sweet. A huge thank you to the love of my life, my rock. Cory, the man who tatted just breathe his side to show me we can get through this. I couldn't do this without you. I love you more than words can say.

The family supports became even more important as AMandas cancer got worse. SHE continued to talk about her experience on her blog.

The doctor said, there is no chance of my hair staying, and I should cut IT short. Curry SAT with me and held my hand. The west husband ever AMandas .

blogs weren't just filled with words. There were hundreds of heart, ranching and war intimate pictures detAiling her journey from copious wiles of blood taken for testing to step by step, photos of a hair falling out.

I was invited to attend the look good, feel Better seminar by the american cancer society.

IT was so cool.

I was, among other women, undergoing chemo. Best part, weve got a huge gutty back of makeup. Shi von bobbi Brown clink, mac S A water scarves, hats. In two weeks, I got an actual Brown wig, but I will also be iraq platinum blind. why?

Because I can.

And then SHE stopped after posting regular updates about her cancer journey. The blog goes .

dark six .

months go by with no post, no pictures, nothing, not a word, until out of nowhere, a brand new post appears alongside photos of AManda and her family celebrating in party house with some amazing news.

Screw you, cancer. I win twill months of testing, eight months of chemo therapy, and today is my day of bliss.

We one.

Neat that will happy ending right? Well, actually, AMandas story is only just getting started.

I'm Nancy muscatel and i'm an investigative producer. I'm based out of los Angeles, california. One of the things I do often in my field of work is I post on facebook and different social media looking for cases, looking for tips, looking for information on the next story I can pursue.

One day after I posted on facebook, I received an email, was an anonymous. They basically said, there's someone out there you need to know about, and if you could do anything about IT, you know, you should. And that really intrigued.

I was like, okay, let's see what this is. There were links to a blog, and the blogs were written by a woman named AManda y. Riley.

The writer of the email that dropped in nance's inbox insisted on anonymity. Nancy went straights to AManda's blog, and SHE couldn't .

stop reading IT. A man is super cute. She's bubble. She's charismatic. You can tell from her writings and her, her blog that he had is one of the first things I looked that, I mean, SHE just, just super, just like a little sister.

like I would look .

at her and and probably think like, this is a little sister, a little someone that I would definitely want to know more about and and feel terrible for, and feel like, wow, this is art. Like, this is, this is sad. When you read the blog like it's very detailed first class, I was like, wow, there's a lot of pictures here.

There's a lot of family, there's a lot of friends. And IT was the opposing the downs, the good, the bad, you know, the help, the no help is read like a soap Opera, you know that you get sucked in and you're like, ah no, oh, this is terrible. This woman has cancer. Like, this information seems accurate.

Only a few months after a monday's cancer in a group, email was sent around to all her friends and family with some terrible news. Things were about to get much worse for AManda.

Hi, friends and family, we are reaching out to all of you to share some sad news today. Unfortunately, we found out a few days back that a man is hodges kingsland former has returned next year will be an imaginably more chAllenging for SHE coy and the kids. And the last year was .

the email went on to specifically detail what AManda was .

about to face SHE faces, months, a vicious chemo, full body radiation followed by a bone marrow transplant.

The only problem.

the cost, one of the major obstacles ament in curry will face this fight will be the sheer cost of the treatment. We're working on an easy solution to help everyone offer financial assistance, customize to fit anyone's budget. We believe in the power of prayer in positive thinking. I know each we will hold a Mandate in a special place in your heart.

I read through the blog and i'm reading IT over and over, and things are in adding up. Things are at making sense the way I thought they should, something just not right.

Sk anda is hosted and produced by me charlie webster and produced by Jackson the clan. AManda's blog post are red by actor kendall horn Peggy AManda's mom is red by actor jill mary hofman edit and theme music by neo pol. A assistant producer casey hurts, as is an editor, seem a gray war. Additional production support from Stephen sleeting will heel and the call urban executive produced by me, charlie webster and Nancy moscato o anda, is onlies gate sound production engineered by pilgrim media group.