Most of us have them. We grow up them, we share life experiences with them, we love them, we fight with them, we carry them with us no matter where we go. Brothers and sisters - there's not a much closer tie that connects people here on earth, other than parent and child.
I recently lost three, two sisters and a brother - all to cancer. That doesn't bode well for me. I'm trying to prepare myself and my children for that possibility.
Jan went very quickly and unexpectedly. None of us had the opportunity to say our good-byes. I thank goodness her new husband and one of her good friends was with her. She had brain cancer - she nor anyone else, knew it until it was too late. She died within a week of diagnosis from a heart attack caused by the meds they had started her on. I had talked to her via phone after her diagnosis and we were making plans to be together at my sister Debbies over the holidays. The next thing I knew I received a call saying she had died.
I was very angry for two years afterwards. She was my best friend. She was the one who kept up with me through the years, no matter where I was. I could always count on a call from Jan - and she would talk for hours. :)
My family used to go visit her over the holidays and often spend weekends at her house except for the last year, possibly year and a half of her life. Now that I look back I can see where the brain cancer may have contributed to her behavioural changes over the last year. Her whole personality changed, she didn't seem to like having children around, she stopped wanting to do things with me. At the time we, nor her, knew she had cancer. I thought the personality changes were because she had started a new life, was dating a new man who she did marry 6 months before she died and just wasn't interested in doing things with me or my children anymore, and they may have been I'll never know. I didn't go see her as much but we did remain in contact over the phone and had the occasional quick lunch together.
I started becoming closer to Debbie, my youngest sister. She'd invite me to her house to visit and I started accepting. My kids and I would go visit weekends and holidays.
After Jan died, I moved to Edna (I know a weird name for a town :) so that I, and my children, could be closer to family. I didn't want what happened to Jan (my not being able to see her and spend time with her) to happen to me again with any of my other brothers and sisters, or myself for that matter. We knew that George, our youngest brother, had leukemia and I wanted to be able to spend time with him, do things with him and help in his care.
George was a highly functioning mentally retarded man. He lived in Seadrift where everyone knew and loved him. He played Santa every Christmas, driving around on his mower with a small trailer attached to the back (which was decorated with Christmas lights) passing out candy canes and toys the town's citizens had donated. He was always a gorilla at Halloween and on any given day you would see him riding around town on his bike stopping to talk to everyone who was out in their yard or at the store.
Every time I went to visit Debbie, George would come over on his bike and we'd sit around and make stupid jokes to make him laugh.
Debbie became ill with what we though was the Swine Flu. It's what the doctor at the emergency room diagnosed. My daugher and I took her to the emergency room and the idot diagnosed her with Swine Flu and sent her home. Her symptoms kept up so she went to her regular doctor who sent her to an oncologist in Victoria. We found out she had lung cancer. A very large tumor was growing in her lung. They started her on chemo. Our baby sister and baby brother and different types of cancer and both were going to see the same oncologist at the same time. Needless to say, we became pretty familiar with that doctor's office.
It was unimaginable that they would both have cancer at the same time. Debbies hair began falling out so she shaved her head. She had the most beautiful hair. She always took such pride in her appearance. It was devastating to her. Ironically, George's hair seemed to grow like wildfire rather than fall out. Poor Debbie became very ill with chemo and she asked me if she could move over to my house in Edna so that I could help take care of her. I, of course, said yes. She had a house sale, sold most of her stuff and her husband bought an RV to park outside our house for them to live in. I offered her my bedroom but they wanted to stay in the RV. We converted the garage to a room for my son and her son and everyone settled in as best they could.
She spent a lot of time in the house with me. When she got tired she'd lay down in my room and I'd lay down beside her. We spent hours, days, weeks talking about her life, her fears, the things she would have done differently. At first, she fully expected to get better but the cancer began to spread quickly even with the chemo. It spread to her liver, to the bones and lymph nodes. It was a very agressive cancer.
Her husband tried to take her to MD Anderson in Houston to save her but I knew in my heart it wasn't going to do any good and would only make her uncomfortable having to move around so much. It hurt her to get in and out of the car, she was in constant pain.
I took her to her radiation treatments and tried to treat her like she was made of fragile glass. She just hurt all the time. More often than not, I could hear her screaming for Mama during her radiation treatments. It hurt her so badly to lay on her back. My heart breaks thinking what suffering she went through. Six months she lasted in this state. She entered the hospital two weeks before she died, the last week she was in a mostly coma-like state. Probably due the morphine dosage they had her on to keep her out of pain. She slipped away from us one morning. Our beautiful Debbie was gone.
You'd have to know her to know what a tragedy it was for everyone. She was the fun one. She was the baby and made of sunshine. She was always laughing and making people laugh. Everyone gravitated to her. The loss of Debbie still breaks my heart. I cry at the most unexpected times. God, I loved that girl.
Eight months after Debbie's death we lost George as well. We buried him beside her. His chemo stopped working. The oncologist sent him to MD Anderson to see if there was any treatment they could give him. There was nothing they could do for him. He stopped taking his chemo because it stopped helping and was making him so sick that he couldn't enjoy his life. It was his choice to stop taking the chemo. Once he did, his health went downhill very quickly.
It was another heartbreak on top of the recent loss of Debbie. Where Debbie didn't seem to be afraid to die, George was. Debbie was a firm believer in God and she knew she was going to heaven and would be with Jan, Mama and Daddy. Debbie feared suffering and God help us all, she did suffer greatly.
George was at my house for a few days when he started crying and told me he didn't want to go see Mama and Debbie. His way of saying he was afraid to die. My heart shattered into pieces. How can you explain death to a man with a 10-year-old mentality. I lied and told him that he wasn't going to die just yet, that he was going to stay right here on earth with me, Ricky and Carolyn. I lied a lot during those last weeks. I didn't want him to spend his time left being scared. I think he knew I was lying. He knew he was dying. He even told me once that God was preparing a place for him. He died shortly after his birthday. I have pictures that I haven't shown anyone of his last birthday party. He was so thin and sick that I've kep them to myself.
When I moved back I never imagined how difficult it would be. Debbie told me, while she was here, that God sent me home to take care of her.
I wish I believed in God, it might make things easier.
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