Southerngirl71
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2006
I am going to try not to make this very long but I don't think I will be successful.
I am the youngest of 6 kids. My older sister was 20 years older than me. Our dad died when I was 15 of a massive heart attack and my older brother stepped in and helped my mom support and raise me.
My brother died during open heart surgery when he was 49. He was truly like a second father to me. He helped me buy my first car and walked me down the aisle when I was married. I took his death pretty hard but not as hard as my sister.
My sister had a colonscopy and endoscopy in November. She was suffering with stomach pains after the procedure but nothing major. She also had a very low tollerance for pain. My mom got a call that my uncle was about to pass away and that if she wanted to see him to come now. She was gone for about 3 hours. During those 3 hours she called my sister to check on her every hour. The last hour she sounded very sleepy and my mom could barely understand her. When she got home she could not wake her up. She was taken to the hospital and we found out she suffered a major stroke.
They did an emergency procedure to open the blockage in her head and we were told it was a waiting game. We were told by the neurologist that she would probably never regain use of her left hand but could possibly be walking on her own in about a year. She never woke up but would respond to our commands by squeesing our hands.
The next day she would not respond to commands. They did an mri and said her brain was swelling. The neurologist said if they did not do surgery to remove part of her scalp she had less than a 10% chance of making it so we had the surgery. They did another mri the next day and her brain was continuing to swell. The nurses in ICU were preparing me for the worse but the neurologist, who just told me if her brain continued to swell she would not make it, was telling me she could still pull through. The nurses were telling me they have never seen someone in her condition pull through. I slept in a chair in the waiting room for three days when my husband talked me into going home to take a nap. I was not home an hour when my brother who was releaving me at the hospital called and said to come back because we needed to talk. The neurosurgeon came in when I left and told my brother that basically her brain was dead and we needed to make a decision about removing life support.
We made the dicison that she suffered enough. My nephew was the one who had to sign but he kept asking me what to do because I was the one everyone in my family always turns to for everything. I said I thought it was time to let her go. The nurses and neuro surgeon agreed but the neurologist did not. The neurosurgeon went as far as to tell me they have had this problem before with the neurologist giving families false hope and that the neurosuregeons were the ones who actually looked at her brain when they removed her skull and that if she were their family member they would let her go. We disconnected life support and she passed away a couple of hours later.
I am so haunted that I made the wrong decision. We should have just waited. It is hard to think about anything else. I feel like I killed my sister.
Thanks so much if you read this lonnnnnnng post. I am not even sure why I wrote it. I just hope that eventually I find peace with my decision.
I am the youngest of 6 kids. My older sister was 20 years older than me. Our dad died when I was 15 of a massive heart attack and my older brother stepped in and helped my mom support and raise me.
My brother died during open heart surgery when he was 49. He was truly like a second father to me. He helped me buy my first car and walked me down the aisle when I was married. I took his death pretty hard but not as hard as my sister.
My sister had a colonscopy and endoscopy in November. She was suffering with stomach pains after the procedure but nothing major. She also had a very low tollerance for pain. My mom got a call that my uncle was about to pass away and that if she wanted to see him to come now. She was gone for about 3 hours. During those 3 hours she called my sister to check on her every hour. The last hour she sounded very sleepy and my mom could barely understand her. When she got home she could not wake her up. She was taken to the hospital and we found out she suffered a major stroke.
They did an emergency procedure to open the blockage in her head and we were told it was a waiting game. We were told by the neurologist that she would probably never regain use of her left hand but could possibly be walking on her own in about a year. She never woke up but would respond to our commands by squeesing our hands.
The next day she would not respond to commands. They did an mri and said her brain was swelling. The neurologist said if they did not do surgery to remove part of her scalp she had less than a 10% chance of making it so we had the surgery. They did another mri the next day and her brain was continuing to swell. The nurses in ICU were preparing me for the worse but the neurologist, who just told me if her brain continued to swell she would not make it, was telling me she could still pull through. The nurses were telling me they have never seen someone in her condition pull through. I slept in a chair in the waiting room for three days when my husband talked me into going home to take a nap. I was not home an hour when my brother who was releaving me at the hospital called and said to come back because we needed to talk. The neurosurgeon came in when I left and told my brother that basically her brain was dead and we needed to make a decision about removing life support.
We made the dicison that she suffered enough. My nephew was the one who had to sign but he kept asking me what to do because I was the one everyone in my family always turns to for everything. I said I thought it was time to let her go. The nurses and neuro surgeon agreed but the neurologist did not. The neurosurgeon went as far as to tell me they have had this problem before with the neurologist giving families false hope and that the neurosuregeons were the ones who actually looked at her brain when they removed her skull and that if she were their family member they would let her go. We disconnected life support and she passed away a couple of hours later.
I am so haunted that I made the wrong decision. We should have just waited. It is hard to think about anything else. I feel like I killed my sister.
Thanks so much if you read this lonnnnnnng post. I am not even sure why I wrote it. I just hope that eventually I find peace with my decision.
.....I am so sorry. 
