Near The End.....

Hello Semi-Colons,

I was asked about my sister's death. I am going to describe it for those who asked and it's not pretty.


**********WARNING*****************************


Please do read any farther if you don't want to hear about my sister's non-peaceful dying and death.

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Consider yourself warned.



I am glad for those of you who had hospice and lots of pain meds that kept your loved ones comfortable in dying and death. That was not the case for my big sister.

She was dx'ed with terminal cancer--adenocarcinoma of the small intestine. I didn't know anything about staging of cancers. I was young and preggie with my 3 baby (in three years) and we didn't have the internet at our fingertips so I didn't do any research. We were told her cancer was rare.

She was "given" 5 years to live. she did take treatment--radiation that was so strong the walls were six feet deep and she did a little chemo. Nothing like what many do on here.

She came home and tried to live as "normal" a life as she could. For a time she did quite well.

But 5 months before she died she started filling up with fluid in her abdomin. She looked nine months preggie ever time. She went in to be drained often and then she'd just fill right up again. Apparently this is cancer filled fluid. Now remember, this was 14 years ago and I had just had my 4th baby (in 5 1/2 years--I was one busy mama) so I didn't pay too much attention to the details.

She got tired of being drained all the time so they decided to put in a shunt. In the process of that surgery they nicked her intestine and dumped a bunch of garbage into her system.

She also did some more chemo which just about killed her right then and there. By the grace of God and her own stubborness she survived. But she was a walking cadaver. I kid you not.

Her eyes bugged out of her head and her teeth bucked out of her mouth she was so skinny. In public people would just stop and stare. I don't think too many dying people venture out much.

She also cried out in pain a lot. Eventually she was pretty much bedridden and just skin and bones. Nanuk can attest--he's seen a photo of her.

So then my last time that I spent with her when she was lucid she finally verbalized that she didn't know how much longer she could do this. Then I knew that the end truly was near. We had had many close calls but when SHE said it then I knew. A could days later she slipped in and out of consciousness. My BIL took her to the ER one evening when she started having labored breathing.

This is when the violence started......I walked into the ER room and she was convulsing violently and blood was coming out of all orifices and her breathing was so labored and convulsive. My other sister turned around and had to leave the room to vomit and I just stood there willing myself to not leave her which I didn't that entire night sleeping on her ICU floor with my 4 mos old baby.

Her body kept convulsing and her eyes were bugged out looking terrified and distant. They were dialated beyond measure.

The nurses allowed me to stand there touching her hand while they worked to get her "under control". When the doctor said loudly righ in front of her, "We're close to death here folks" I thought my father was going to haul off and deck him right there on the spot. Instead he took him out in the hallway and reamed his **** good!

Anyway, they eventually were able to quiet her down and move her to ICU for the night. She was able to communicate once that whole night and then after that it was just a few movements and then after that there was nothing until she died a couple days later drugged and catatonic. Once could call that peaceful I guess. It surely isn't like in the movies.

She died looking like a ninety year old woman not a 33 year old. Her hair was sparse, her skin was saggy and she had no muscle left. Her teeth still protruding.

This is the face of intestinal cancer that I carry with me.

This is the experience that helped to convince me that chemo was not the way to go for me.

This helped to inspire me to do it differently because that's all I knew of cancer. It ate you until there's nothing left. We don't have a lot of cancer in our family--I had one aunt --my father's sister who had breast cancer but when she got really sick she didn't allow anyone to see her. And my mom's father had lung cancer (he smoked) and all I saw was a once strapping hunk of a man whittled down to a bag of bones. All of them had done conventional medicine and it didn't do any healing for them and they suffered badly in the meantime.

I hope you can understand now why I am so radical when it come to no chemo and using dietary modalities for healing.

As for preparing for death....I spent the years following her dx "preparing" but when it came down to it, there was nothing that prepared me for the vomit-inducing scene that ushered in her final days.

When she was dying those last few months I vascillated between praying for her to go quickly to begging for more time that she could spend with her baby. (she gave birth 5 months before she died). I was annoyed at how much her dying took over my life and then I would feel utterly guilty that I would have these thoughts. there were days when I would think, "Just GO already!" I lived on pins and needles anticipating that middle of the night phone call. Thankfully it wasn't the middle of the night though and we all had been able to spend time with her before she went catatonic. I remember one evening on my son's birthday we were all celebrating and it was very difficult at this time to find much to celebrate. But it was his birthday and she called and I though, "Can't I just have ONE happy moment without her black death cloud hanging over us?" I never was able to converse with her again as she slipped away.....talk about guilt.

I share all this as a caregiver and the feelings that we go through on the other side. Who ever wants to admit that we just wish for a split second the dying would speed up and we could get on with our lives. There is no shame in admitting it. It's damn hard to watch someone you love die---especially someone so young and vibrant and well-loved.

I will tell you too that I didn't feel "normal" for three years--I felt like I was walking around in a fog those three years.

Anyway, for those of you who asked this is my story.

Now go get a juicer and start eating live enzymes and beat this disease!!


peace, emily who misses her big sister every day, but it does get easier over the years