My sister has always been ill. She was diagnosed with a …well, it was a rare disease, you wouldn’t know what it is if I typed out its name. Suffice to say it is not genetic, the doctors don’t know what caused it, and it shut down her kidneys.

I had always been told she was three when this happened, but at her funeral dad kept saying five, so we will say four, for a happy medium.

Sheri’s life fucking sucked. She was in a wheelchair because of a stroke she had in her teens. her diet was super restricted, low fluid, low sodium, that kind of thing becuase of the dialysis. She left school every Tuesday and Thursday (I pushed her wheelchair to the bus) to go to the city for dialysis – they hooked her to a machine, it takes out all her blood, cleans it and puts it back in her. Its a 3-4 hour process. its boring.

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In the past year, a tonne of shit had gone wrong in my sisters life. Just with medical issues; Her BP was out of control, going down way way low to super high in a matter of minutes. Her kidneys (cadaver transplant lasting seven years) rejected and she was forced back onto dialysis. her appendix burst. Her most recent challenge was chest pains. She was on a nitro patch, blood thinners, and other shit for it. She went from morbidly obese to slightly over weight to about 90 pounds in 18 months.

Then. She died.

See.

We were all together on Sunday, May 2, for my dads birthday. She was active, cheerful, HAPPY. she played with her nieces and nephews she giggled and joked with all of us. She was fucking NORMAL. Monday night she complained of stomach pain, but refused to see a doctor. Tuesday she went for dialysis and they kept her in. Wednesday morning she had a catscan. Wednesday afternoon she was rushed to a larger hospital. Wednesday evening she died.

Technically, according to the papers, Sheri died of a heart attack. But honestly? She died from constipation. She had been taking morphine – a drug with the side effect of constipation. We dunno if she knew it was bad she hadn’t poo’d in weeks, if she had even noticed, we dunno if she knew it and just kept taking the morphine and wanted to die, She talked about the right to die last summer when her kidney failed and she needed to decided to go back on dialysis and live, or stay off it and die.

I took my boys up to see her. She always called them “MY boys” she loved them more than anything. After I sent them down with their daddy, she told me she would go back on dialysis becuase she wanted to see her boys grow up.

So her bowels burst. And they rushed her to the hospital, and we all came rushing too. Dad said he knew it was bad becuase when the doctor phones an adults’ parent for consent, it means the adult (she was 33) is unable to give consent. When we saw her, she was already unconscious. Her breathing was weird. I can still hear it very very clearly. Her eyes were open, but she never blinked. I asked the nurses repeatedly to close her eyes. I knew I was being stupid, but all i could think was “Sheri is gonna be mad when she wakes up, her eyes will be so dry”.

We got to stand at her bed in the ER for about 20 minutes. I held her had. I willed her to just give me the tiniest squeeze. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life then to feel one tiny movement, the slightest finger touch would have been better then winning the biggest lotto in the world.

I knew it was bad, becuase they let all six of us stay in the ER with them, when there are signs EVERYWHERE saying only one person at a time. They let us all stay in while they administered drugs to thicken her blood for surgery. She had been on a blood thinner for the heart pain. They couldn’t operate until her blood thickened.

They asked the men to leave so they could change her bedding, it had been messed when they put in a central line in her neck. (They let us stay for that) (six of us, a bazillion doctors and nurses, and they never made me let go of her hand)

We all went out side the ER door to wait for them to change the sheets.

code blue to the ER

“Its not sheri”

Danny is peeking through the crack in the door

“it is too sheri. fuck”

“nono, its not sheri. its someone else”

“Are you the family of Sheri? I need you to come down the hall with me, we have a nice room for you to wait in”

“daddy I don’t like the hallway. I don’t wanna to go down the hall”

He held me up. I couldn’t walk it alone. Micah was still home with the boys. We’d done the ER race before and it’s always ended fine. We assumed it would again. So Micah wasn’t with me.

We got to the room. Its always a bad sign when the couches are plush soft leather when you are in a hospital.

We waited.
we cried.
we laughed.
we swore.

The doctor came. Sher’s heart had stopped. The team had been doing CPR for 15 minutes. They needed permission to stop.

agony.

We said yes

And then hell broke loose. Micah was called. I needed him so bad. he dropped the kids off at the neighbors. No one was clear to him why he needed to be here, just that he needed to be here NOW. He came.

Lots of crying.
pain. lots of pain.

Then footsteps

“Folks we’ve had a bit of a miracle here. her heart started again. 26 years in the ER and i have never had a heart start again after that amount of time”

Rejoyce. But sad.

We all know its grim. impossibly grim

I beg to see her. they let me. When they let me in, i knew that was it. Even if they could get her to surgery, she was gone. She had thrown up. that had cause hher heart to stop the first time. But she had thrown up straight contents from her bowels. They didnt even clean her before we saw her that last time, her face, her hair. it was all over. they were too busy working on her to clean her.

Her hands were so soft.

They asked us to go so they could begin trying to transport her to the operating room.

We did.

CODE BLUE

people rushed. we giggled that sheri would have loved this, that she was keeping “her” nurses running, right to the end, just the way she would have liked it.

CODE BLUE

no one rushed. they were already in the room

CODE BLUE CODE BLUE CODE BLUE

We talked. we cried. we laughed a lot. We all understood what was happening, that across the hall, in the OR, what they were doing wasn’t going to matter.

When the doctor came out, he told us they hadn’t even begun the operation, Her heart just kept failing, there was just too much poison in her system.

This time, no chaos. there were tears, but the sobs and screams of two hours before when we gave permission to stop CPR were gone. We were in control.

I truly believe she gave us that time, that she did that for us.

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more later.