Good Journey, Big Bro
Around July 16th, my big brother Jesse had a minor heart attack. It wasn't that serious...shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, all the usual. We got him to the hospital for treatment and after some testing, it was discovered he had an infection in his heart and arteries which was slowly deteriorating the interior walls. They set a date for heart surgery to repair it as well as possible. That took over a week, so he was in the hospital the whole time.
On July 26th (10 days later) he was transferred to UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. His was in surgery for 22 hours. Unfortunately, his heart never started again. The doctors tried all options and they had to throw out the possibility of the transplant since the infection had spread even further than the testing showed. Putting in a new heart would not have helped since the infection was so spread it would have also contaminated the new heart as well. He was kept "alive" via machines for 1 day... enough time for any family who wanted to say goodbye to be able to. I chose to stay home. Huge turnout including his 4 of his 5 children (ages 11-28). Grandfather of 4, though he was more of a father to them as well since their own fathers were not in the picture.
My mother and father will be legally adopting and taking care of the kids.
Needless to say, shock. Nobody, not even my bro expected he would be dying. Even before the surgery he was talking about being healthier and how the recovery would be long and difficult. He was making plans. After the goodbyes, with family present, he was unplugged on July 28th, 2:38pm PST. He just turned 48 years old.
I haven't really felt the impact yet, but I know it's creeping up. I try not to think much about it, and am more concentrating on the things I need to do right now such as staying in control for my folks and the kids. They are falling apart and I am glad I can be someone for them to turn to.
Since this was very unexpected, they were not prepared for the burial costs ($11,500). Quite the ridiculous costs but that was the cheapest they could find outside of Cremation ($8,500) but none of them wanted that. My mother had me write up a GoFundMe page for her and through the help of people on Twitter and where ever else it was shared, we managed to pull in at least $1,400. The cynical and angry-at-life side of me makes me think I could have made more if I said my fursuit was stolen or burned, but I'm not really the lying type.
We sold his car, family donated, we held car washes, yard and garage sales and managed to pull in about $8,500. The mortician took pity and said "Pay the cemetary, they won't let you bury him until they're paid. You can pay us the rest within a couple months." Very nice of him. So we finally got a date to lay him to rest on 8/16. Sheesh, nearly 3 weeks later. I will probably close her GoFundMe soon despite having not met the goal. I don't see a point in keeping it up. We had set it higher to 20k since they will now be sole caretakers for the kids and their finances are already not the best.
About a week later (8/6), my Grandmother died. We were very close to her as well. Fortunately all of her arrangements had been taken care of so her funeral will be on (8/13).
I don't know why I'm writing. Figuring I would hope it would help, but it isn't. I think I will finally be able to express something outwardly during or (hopefully) after the funeral.
I am not being myself the past few weeks... I want to stay my usual waggy self but it takes a lot of effort, so I've resorted to just not saying anything, not posting or speaking to anyone and just avoiding it all together. Gotta train myself to get back into socializing and moving on.
On July 26th (10 days later) he was transferred to UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. His was in surgery for 22 hours. Unfortunately, his heart never started again. The doctors tried all options and they had to throw out the possibility of the transplant since the infection had spread even further than the testing showed. Putting in a new heart would not have helped since the infection was so spread it would have also contaminated the new heart as well. He was kept "alive" via machines for 1 day... enough time for any family who wanted to say goodbye to be able to. I chose to stay home. Huge turnout including his 4 of his 5 children (ages 11-28). Grandfather of 4, though he was more of a father to them as well since their own fathers were not in the picture.
My mother and father will be legally adopting and taking care of the kids.
Needless to say, shock. Nobody, not even my bro expected he would be dying. Even before the surgery he was talking about being healthier and how the recovery would be long and difficult. He was making plans. After the goodbyes, with family present, he was unplugged on July 28th, 2:38pm PST. He just turned 48 years old.
I haven't really felt the impact yet, but I know it's creeping up. I try not to think much about it, and am more concentrating on the things I need to do right now such as staying in control for my folks and the kids. They are falling apart and I am glad I can be someone for them to turn to.
Since this was very unexpected, they were not prepared for the burial costs ($11,500). Quite the ridiculous costs but that was the cheapest they could find outside of Cremation ($8,500) but none of them wanted that. My mother had me write up a GoFundMe page for her and through the help of people on Twitter and where ever else it was shared, we managed to pull in at least $1,400. The cynical and angry-at-life side of me makes me think I could have made more if I said my fursuit was stolen or burned, but I'm not really the lying type.
We sold his car, family donated, we held car washes, yard and garage sales and managed to pull in about $8,500. The mortician took pity and said "Pay the cemetary, they won't let you bury him until they're paid. You can pay us the rest within a couple months." Very nice of him. So we finally got a date to lay him to rest on 8/16. Sheesh, nearly 3 weeks later. I will probably close her GoFundMe soon despite having not met the goal. I don't see a point in keeping it up. We had set it higher to 20k since they will now be sole caretakers for the kids and their finances are already not the best.
About a week later (8/6), my Grandmother died. We were very close to her as well. Fortunately all of her arrangements had been taken care of so her funeral will be on (8/13).
I don't know why I'm writing. Figuring I would hope it would help, but it isn't. I think I will finally be able to express something outwardly during or (hopefully) after the funeral.
I am not being myself the past few weeks... I want to stay my usual waggy self but it takes a lot of effort, so I've resorted to just not saying anything, not posting or speaking to anyone and just avoiding it all together. Gotta train myself to get back into socializing and moving on.