She was my only sister. We talked about everything, except for the problem she had. Seven or eight years ago she had a gastric bypass. Then she weighed 340 lbs., she had dropped down to 89 lbs. She was 5’8” tall.
A few years ago she had to have open heart surgery, a blood clot had went to her heart, because of a box they had put in her chest, she was severely malnourished, that is how she got her vitamins. After the surgery she became addicted to Morphine.
Last January my sister was admitted to the hospital in intensive care. She had aspiration pneumonia. Her lungs kept filling up as fast as they could get them drained, She had inhaled her vomit. And her lungs kept filling up trying to flush it self out, she was drowning. She laid their one life support for a few weeks. Her fever had got up to 108.5 degrees. The doctor said she has bulimia. She had been put in an induced coma. They believed because she was in a coma, it helped her. I told her that the doctor said she had bulimia. And she said the doctor does not no what he is talking about. She blamed her sickness on her gastric bypass and the Morphine. I told her somebody has given you a second chance. So she told me she was going to change her life.
In October she took me out to eat, afterwards she said she had to go to the restroom, I said I do too. When we got in the restroom she just stood there, and I said go Cathy. So she did, I went in mine and she went in hers. I heard her throwing up, the first thing that I thought of was bulimia, she had been blaming her sickness on the gastric bypass and the Morphine. All I told her was you just wasted that money. Now I realize she was waiting on me to leave. I would give anything to have that day back. I would have gone with what I first thought. She maybe would still be here. Why did I not listen to myself?
I talked to Cathy about her Morphine problem. We all thought since she was in the hospital last, our parents took care of her for 4 months, before she went home so she would not have to go to a nursing home. Our dad took the Morphine from her, thought he had weaned her off of it. So we thought. Occasionally her husband would come and pick her up and take her home for a few hours to be with her family. I guess she had a stash there.
December 22, she was admitted back to the hospital in post intensive care. They had said she had colitis, and that she was fixing to come home. December 25, the last time I got to really talk to my sister was Christmas day.
December 26, she had an oxygen mask on and they were keeping her doped up, she knew I was there but did not try to talk a lot, she was having a hard time keeping her mask on. I could not understand if she just had colitis and fixing to come home then why the oxygen? We were so happy.
December 27, she had been put on the ventilator again.




PREVIOUS PAGE


