I lost my brother on June 30, 4 days after his 50th birthday. While it is was unexpected, his health had been in serious decline for the last 1 1/2 years. He was overweight, a smoker with severe sleep apnea. In April of this year, he was hospitalized for 12 days with multiple systems failures - may have started as a kidney rupture but his blood pressure, blood oxygen levels and heart rate were all over the place. He was in ICU most of the time, with various specialists treating him and none of them appearing to be communicating.
My sisters and I took turns sitting with him, making sure he kept his oxygen mask on because he was so combative, going in and out of consciousness, he kept tearing it off and they had restrained him at one point.
One afternoon the respiratory therapist came in and began to tell me a story about her own brother who she said reminded her of my brother. She told me about his battle with COPD and apnea and how he died. And she told me that I wouldn't want that for my brother, that this was not quality of life. And it was in that moment that I first realized that my brother may never get better. For so long I had waited for him to have his A-HA moment - realize that saying he wanted to change and actually taking the steps were 2 different things. And now maybe that wasn't an option. A little while later, the cardiologist came in and when I asked him to tell me what was going on, he assured me that his heart was the least of his problems but that I need to prepare myself for the fact that he was very sick. But again..noone seemed to know what that "sick" was.
I made the decision to not tell my family what had been said to me. I didn't even tell my brother. And the next day, after I mentally prepared myself to spend the day making sure he kept the oxygen mask on in order to avoid him being intubated, I walked in to ICU and my brother was sitting up in bed. Like nothing was wrong. He downplayed the whole incident. And he spent about another week in the hospital waiting for someone to tell him what was really wrong. And no one ever did. Yeah - a psycho general practitioner who was covering his actual doctors rounds came in on the 2nd to last day actually yelling with a long list of possible scenarios after my brother made a call to his doctor and said no one was giving him info. And then she discharged him a day later. He was very depressed and very sick. A visiting nurse came for a few weeks and slowly he went back to his life. He did quit smoking and really perked up.
Over the last few weeks of his life, he appeared visibly happier. He was upbeat in a way I hadn't really ever seen unless he had a couple drinks in him. He stopped by my house unexpectedly one day and we talked about his worries about my mom getting older. We talked about how close we had all stayed over the years (6 kids) but that it wasn't always healthy. It wasn't a long conversation but it stuck with me. I called him on his birthday but I didn't hear back from him. 2 days later, I saw him at my mothers. We had dinner a a birthday cake and he was so happy and upbeat, it was a little freaky. He was so proud of the fact that he had gone 55+ days without smoking. His breathing sounded a little labored. I asked him about it and him assured me he was fine. I didn't push it because no one ever won an argument with my brother.
2 days later he died. He collapsed in his neighborhood bar bathroom, a few minutes after walking in the door. His autopsy revealed a heart 3 times larger than the average human heart. There was a long list of contributing factors but it doesn't even matter at this point. My brother is dead and I'm devastated. My mother is devastated. My brother and sisters are devastated.
My biggest fear is that somehow this story will end. I mean right now, there's still more to tell. Explaining how I told my son. How I wrote an obituary. How I wrote a memorial tribute to him. How his friends came together. But I'm so afraid that one day there will be nothing left to say.
CLC100