What would you do if you found out you only have weeks left to live? Most of us, once we’d made sure our loved ones were taken care of, would turn to big things like a trip around the world or some adventure we’d always longed to experience.
But one 22-year-old who finds herself in this position has kept things remarkably simple. Her answer to the question? Basically, “whatever I want, and the heck with the consequences.” She has people online cheering.
In her Reddit postthe young woman revealed that she’s found herself in a pretty terrible situation. After battling cancer for two years and even losing a limb to the disease, she’d finally gotten back in the swing of things, even returning to work.
But then things took a turn: the treatment stopped working, and since the cancer is in her bones, there is nothing to be done. “Probably got weeks, maybe a couple months at best,” she wrote in her post. So what’s a girl this young without resources to do? Say “eff it,” basically.
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It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be this young and saddled with this dark reality. Her life never really had a chance to even begin, and now it’s just suddenly … over.
So it’s not exactly surprising that something between gusto and nihilism, or maybe a combo of the two, would take over. Who can blame her?
“I am 22, don’t own a house, don’t own my car. Have maybe £2k in the bank,” she explained. “So I took out a credit card, 6.5k limit, 0% APR for 20 months … and am now buying whatever the (eff) I want. The debt will die with me, and I give no (effs).”
She’s gone on a true spending spree, from buying jewelry mementos for her family to high-end groceries and practically cleaning out a candy store. While on one hand, this may seem “irresponsible” if you’re the type of person who is conventional and rule-bound to a fault, pretty much everyone online had one thing to say: Go bigger!
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“I have taken your advice and took some more cards out,” she wrote in an update. “Live laugh love, amirite?” Yes, indeed! And boy, has she leaned in.
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She bought herself a nearly $500 lunch of fresh English crab because it’s her favorite food. She bought three HUGE stuffed animals from the “bougie” line she’s always wanted. She bought a pair of pants she’s been eyeing, took her family on vacation, sent her brothers to the arcade for a spare-no-expenses day of gaming — the list goes on.
As she put it, “I’m very nostalgia driven, and yeah definitely not going feral enough, however, will endeavour for more!” She’s taken out even more credit cards, but she intends to use them for the other thing she’s been having a spending spree on: Charitable donations, like more than $1300 in groceries for a local food bank.
Almost everyone on Reddit said they’d do the same thing, and urged her to keep going. “I hope your days are filled with joy and you get to do what you want,” one person wrote. “Don’t worry about debt or anything like that, go enjoy your days :)”
Now we Americans are probably wondering about the mess she might be leaving behind for her family, but under UK law, debt cannot be “inherited” by a person’s family. Instead, this young woman’s family gets to watch her live out her final days like a kid in a candy store — literally, in her case — and share those moments along with her before saying goodbye. That’s worth every penny.
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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
