(no subject)
my sister bridgid passed away on tuesday the 15th of august, 2006. my sister is... was very sick, she was what one in the medical field would call a non-compliant diabetic. she didn't do her stuff (checking her blood sugar, eating right, exercising etc.), and she was in the hospital so frequently it numbed how scared and worried i should have been about it. she was going blind, and she had the worst stomach issues i've ever seen or heard of anyone having. i was five when she got diabetes, and i don't remember her before then,though i do have memories of having to care of my sick sister when i was 7 and she was 17.
she was my bestfriend. it took me until i was 18 for that to happen, but it did.
on friday the 11th, she elected to have a boob job and liposuction. she had always wanted to have a boob job, but i didn't seriously think she was going to have it. she had an appointment scheduled previously to have it done, but she got sick and couldn't do it. this time she was going to do it, she was 30 years she said, the doctor knew what he was doing she said, it was something she wanted and she was going to have it she said. so she did it. the doctor didn't check with her endrocrinologist (her diabetes doctor) or even her primary physician, he just did it. he didn't do blood work or a real physical. he thought she was healthy i guess. she hasn't been healthy since she was 16 and got diabetes.
the next morning she supposedly was fine. her friend (the one who signed the release forms saying she'd take care of bridgid) thought it would be okay to leave my sister alone for an hour and half, and when she came back my sister was technically dead. they called the ambulance and they got her pulse going again, but she wouldn't breathe on her own. my family was called. i was in santa barbara at kristina's cousin's wedding. kristina's family got kristina and i into a car with a driver and had us driven back to the bay, i got home at 1am. i thought it was fine, i didn't realize how bad it was, i thought my sister would recover, she had been sick so often i was even looking forward to her getting better so i could yell at her. the next morning my dad was taking me to the hospital in san jose to see her, and he mentioned that we probably would have to make a decision about taking bridgid off life support, and that was the first time i realized i could lose my sister.
they say she had an embollism. a pulmonary embollism that cut off the oxygen to her brain, and caused a stroke and heart attack. she was alone when she died. on monday the neurologist told us that the oxygen supply to my sister's brain had been cut off for too long. her lack of nuerological response indicated brain death, there wasn't even any reponse in her lower brain stem. tuesday, my entire family and my sister's closest friends congregated at the hospital and said goodbye. that was the hardest thing i have ever had to do in my life, and i hope it's the hardest thing i will ever have to do. to watch my sister not be able to breath by herself, and turn blue. oh G-d.
thursday the 17th, was the funeral.
my sister is gone. i miss her so much. i'm getting my license soon, and the idea of not being able to have her watch me drive away that first time makes me want to cry like a baby. there are no words for how much this sucks, there is no vocabulary for it. yesterday was the first day i had cried since the funeral and i didn't want to do it. i don't want to do it now, but i am. i wish my denial could last forever so i didn't have to face this horrifying reality.
tragedy is so frighteningly real, and i had never known it before.