As I've said up and down the Arcamax thread, I'm pretty sure that Barb is just adjusting to the new diagnosis. Presumably if she was always a huge drama queen, her friend would be expecting this, so my assumption is this is pretty OOC. Well, new diagnoses that are scary and require major lifestyle changes will cause people to get pretty intense for a while. Treat it like a death in the family and give your friend some leeway as she comes to terms with the new normal.