April 21, 2013

  • My Sister Is Dying

    That is such a shocking thing to say, but I don't think I can deny it.  I am deciding if and when to fly to Los Angeles and be with her and my niece and nephew and other sister and brother and cousins and aunts and uncles and I am terrified and trying not to make it about me.

    It isn't even like it was visiting Mom in Northern California where I spent the majority of my life, this is actually "HOME" home....This is smack dab in my roots and where I spent the best years of my life... I'm terrified.

    I'm terrified to fly in the first place. When Mom died,  on the way to the airport I had to tell the cab drive to pull over so I could vomit.  I'm sick days before I have to fly,  with anxiety (I use Propranolol for temporary anxiety relief, and I would drink as much as possible but alcohol makes me sicker easily so I generally avoid it...)

    Anyway... there are relatives and family that I have not seen since I was 13 years old that is causing mega anxiety too.  Especially since people want you to stay with them and drive you around. I don't want this I am scared and prefer my own motel room and rental car,  but am horrified to drive in LA... I have not actually driven a car in probably 10 or 15 years now, although I am sure it will come back.  The last time I did this was take a rental straight from the airport into down town SF which is fine and actually a very tiny city and I have driven there many times.  I have never,  as an adult,  taken a car out of the airport onto an LA Freeway and worked my way into a suburb in the foothills.  I'm sure it will be fine but it fills me with negative excitement and fear...

    They think you are weird and snooty if you don't stay there.  I have more than 100 cousins,  more than I know about and I have never met many of them.  Several of these I know from childhood.  They already think I am the odd ball who ran off to the city, and when I got Facebook and got back into contact with them , several thought I was actually DEAD and I had to prove who I was... someone had started a rumor years ago that I was dead....  shit....   I had other cousins that did die and I did not ask the root of this rumor but I can only imagine....

    I also find it extremely ironic,  that just because they spend the majority of their waking hours sitting in cars,  they live in LOS ANGELES and I am the one who ran off to THE CITY.... crap...

    It would take to long to describe what is wrong with my sister in detail.   She is in frail health,  near 70 years old and has smoked like a fiend all of her life.    She had a  "Billroth 1" procedure a few years ago because of ulcer damage.  She had an obstructed bowel.   She has a host of other health issues.  She has a high tolerance for pain and I believe has Dysthymia  however I am the only person in my family deals much with science and logic. 

    The others believe that any sort of problem that is not a physical sickness,  like anything emotional or mental is either just laziness... spite,  acting out as a cry for attention, stupidity or just someone feeling sorry for themselves.   She has been anorexic and weighs 96 pounds.   she has always been lethargic and apathetic and does not take care of her self nor visit a dr. when needed. 

    She must have a high tolerance for pain.  She walked around with a broken neck for over a year nearly paralyzing herself without even knowing after a car accident and didn't even see a dr. until she slipped a year later and made it hurt...  

    anyway she was vomiting shit... she knew she was vomiting shit.  it didn't smell nor taste like she but she knew what it was as it had happened before.  I begged and begged her to go to the hospital or call someone... she would not,  she was in touch with her son, he knew.   This is not new behavior for her.   She has a home health aid that lives right next door....   she was not in pain and did not have fever and told me would see a dr. soon or call 911 if it got worse.    she waited 3 days.  She hates, loathes and fears going to a Dr.  

    She had to have the Billroth II procedure :(

    It is leaking.  She is septic.  Her blood pressure and vital signs were roller coaster for 2 days..  she is stable...

    She is starving to death and still septic but the white cell / lymphocyte count shows improvement.

    A decision has to be made by her and her two children.  

    A specialist has to be found who is willing.

    I am waiting to hear if and when they will perform a surgery to repair the leakage.  This obviously has to heal for the sepsis and for the destruction of the acidic bile leaking into the sensitive tissue of the cavity...

    If a surgeon is willing to do the surgery she is weak enough that the risk is great of her not surviving it.

    Yesterday she had not been told the details.   If the surgery is not done,  the chances of her healing on her own and surviving are slim.  

    I am waiting to hear if and when to fly out.  If they do the surgery, I will go to where it will be performed before and during.  If there is not be nothing done, I will go to where she is now....

    I am so sad,   my family is weird. My mother was near 40 when I was born and worked in my father's company.   My older brother was exactly 20 and in the war.   This sister was 17 or 18.   She was the first woman I called "Momma"... and then there is another brother,  another sister 8 years older than me and the me.    My early roles were confused.  When I saw Precious, this was after my mom had passed, I spent the next day in bed weeping because I thought I had been raised by my grandmother and my sister was really my mother because there were  also whispers of tensions between my parents and my older sister involving secret things and jealousy on and off over the years. 

    Anyway,  I called the younger sister to ask and apparently I am my mother's 5th child which I really kind of thought anyhow but the possibility and similarities were shocking to me and I obviously have maternal feelings toward both of my sisters as well as my mother.

    I was basically raised through the 1960s in  LA by a tribe of 6 adults of various ages... this is how I seem to have knowledge that precedes my years to some people... I was exposed to life as it unfolded and was shielded from little, although heavily protected....

    anyway, my point is .... I'm pretty much in shock because I'm losing my big sister, my second mother and they say you can never go HOME again.... but I am probably going to have to try anyhow....
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