My Sister

This week is a year since the "phone call". I will never forget what I was doing, what I was wearing, and where I was when my mom called and said "We are taking your sister to the Emergency Room". From that point, the news only got worse and I felt like I was living someone else's life- someone else's nightmare. I think my way of coping now is to pretend that it happened to someone else. You never expect your life to change in an instance. Feb 16 was just like any other day until the phone call. It is amazing how everything that seems so important in every day life like what is due at work, can all of a sudden become unimportant. How your life, fights, regrets, last conversations can all flash before your eyes. It is indescribible how you feel when the rug has been pulled out from your nice orderly life. I can tell you every moment that happened from the moment I got that call, to leaving work, finding my grandmother at bridge, driving to Athens, being in the Chick Fil A drive through talking to my Dad when my Mom beeps in and tells him that there is bleeding on my sister's brain, how the car couldn't get to the hospital fast enough, how frail my sister looked, how my Mom was trying to be strong and just barely holding it together for my sister, how the pastor came and sat with my family, how they took my sister away for a MRI and when she came back she didn't even remember us being there, how the doctor came in and said that there was something on her brain and that they might have to put a drain in, to my Dad and other sister arriving just in time to make the decision that we needed to fly her to Augusta, how we all caravanned to Augusta while my cousin flew my Mom, how we had to stop at Waffle House so my Dad could eat, how dark the hospital looked when we finally found her room and the news that she would have surgery on Friday. Somehow 2 days didn't seem like enough time to make sure you said everything you wanted to say, just in case. But you couldn't think about "just in case" because you would fall apart. I remember Thursday coming to the hospital to hear the news about surgery and me starting to cry and my sister grabbing my hand and telling me that it would be okay. She shouldn't be comforting me! At that moment I swore to stay strong for her. In front of her, I wouldn't cry. I would comfort her and make her laugh. I would hold her hand for hours while she was awake and while she was asleep. So Friday came and we were all ready but not ready. Not ready to let her go and maybe never see her again. To put my trust in God that she would come out of surgery okay and let him comfort me while I waited. When they rolled her back into the pre-op room, I couldn't hold back and my grandmother comforted me. We sat for 3-4 hrs waiting until my parents came back from pre-op. My Mom was frantic and you could see my parents were worn down. We waited and each minute seemed like an hour. They said they were done - done early, not done early because there was a problem. The good news was that they got all of the tumor. What I wasn't ready for was seeing her after surgery. It is a sight that I wish I could erase from memory. For the next week, we sat and we were together. All fights between us were erased. I was her rock and my Mom's rock. When I had to return to my life, it was hard. It didn't matter that the day of her surgery was the day that I was suppose to move into my first new house. That moment would come a week later and not seem nearly as important as being home and being with family. The hardest part is leaving, being the one to go on while everyone else lives with the rehab and healing. Missing out on her small steps of being able to walk, then walk alone, then getting dressed alone, taking a bath alone. Missing out on the game of giving her the same presents over and over again because she doesn't remember opening them the first time. Missing her getting better, starting to remember. Then at some point life is normal again for me but not normal for the 4 people closest to me. Maybe never normal again for them because I lived through it for a week and they lived with it for months.
American Brain Tumor Association
Brain Tumor Society
National Brain Tumor Foundation
Brain Tumor from Wikipedia