The first day I visited there was still hope. The chances of recovery were slim but when you have nothing else, you grab on to "hope" with both hands and hold on tight.
When my youngest daughter, Tiffany, called me and told me that Heather, her best friend from childhood, was in the hospital gravely ill, I automatically assumed it was a crisis that would be overcome and soon she would recover and get out of the hospital. She was only 32 after all. Young and strong.
Tiffany was not so optimistic. She tried to prepare me for what I would see. She told me that Heather's liver was in the end stages of liver disease. She said that her kidneys had stopped functioning and she was on a dialyze machine. She warned that she was bright yellow, swollen, and because fluid was accumulating throughout her body, it was also flooding her brain and she wasn't always lucid.
Her roommates had waited three days after she turned bright yellow and was in extreme pain before calling 911. A decision that might have cost Heather her life. By the time she got to the hospital, her situation was already beyond critical.
Heather was as much a member of our family as each of us were. Growing up she seem to be at our house more than she was at her own. Sometimes she would be there for weeks without going home. The kids thought of her as a sibling and I loved her as though she was my own.
Our family was as different from hers as night is to day. Two families could not have been more different. Her family was distant and aloof. Showing emotion was consisted a sign of weakness and although there was a lot of love, there was little outward affection. Heather craved affection.
Our family, in contrast, is a huggie, touchy, verbal, love you forever, demonstrative bunch. We adored Heather and she blossomed in our loving environment. No one sparkled like Heather. She was funny, witty, and full of life.
Son, Bobby, and I drove from the Olympic Peninsula to pick up daughter Stephanie in Auburn and then on into Seattle to pick up Tiffany so we could all go to the hospital together (thank goodness Tiffany was with us - Harborview Crisis Center is a maze of different facilities). As soon as daughter Robyn in Arizona learned about Heather she immediately booked a flight home. We would all be there for her as a family. Her family.
Even though Tiffany had attempted to explain Heather's condition, nothing could prepare us for what we saw. When we got to the Critical Care Unit, we had to sanitize our hands and then put on gloves and a gown before we could enter her room. That was to protect both her and us.
I knew she would be jaundiced but I didn't know that she would be the color of a school bus. The only thing white was her teeth which appeared bright white in comparison. Her eyes seem to be floating in a pool of yellow fluid. Her legs were purple and splotching and were about twenty times their normal size and were beginning to split. Her abdomen was swollen and bloated.
All that was hard to see but I could handle it. What I was not prepared for was the agonizing pain and suffering she was going though. Because her blood pressure was so low, they couldn't give her any sedation for fear of her blood pressure bottoming out. Her body was so swollen that it was leaching the toxic fluids in her body out through her skin. Because her liver and kidneys weren't functioning, she was septic. They didn't want any of her body fluids to get on us because of the degree of toxicity.
While we were there they had to perform several painful procedures without pain medication. It was all too horrible for words but she handled it with dignity and grace. We were made to leave the room but Heather needed for Tiffany to be within ear shot. Tiffany's voice soothed her and gave her strength. I was amazed at how well Tiffany responded to her friend's needs. She seem to know just the right things to say and do.
She was so pleased and surprised that we all came to see her. "You're here to see me?" There was no place else we would be except by her side. It was sad that she didn't realize that. She was and always will be our girl.
Even though she was in so much pain, she still managed to joke around and make us laugh. We made plans to go camping at the lake. We agreed that when she got out the hospital that she'd come stay with me so I could take care of her and nurse her back to health.
At one point she squeezed my hand and said "Momma, I'm so sick. Am I going to get better?" I hesitate just a quick second and then said "Of course you are Baby. You just have to stay here until you're better." She said "Pinky swear?" and extended her little pinky. I linked my pinky with hers and it was all I could do to not break down in front of her. It was at that moment that I realized this was the only promise I had ever made to her that I wasn't sure I could keep. Bobby and Stephanie left the room so she wouldn't see their tears.
This was the last day our Heather was conscious. That evening she went into a coma that she never awoke from. She was placed on life support. We were not made aware of this until Tiffany went to the hospital the following day.
After I got home that night, I was unable to sleep. I alternated between body racking sobs and staring off into space. Finally around 4 a.m. while it was still black outside, I went outside in only my nightgown to sit on the front porch - thankful for the cold, frigid air. I was so empty inside that I wanted to feel something - anything.
While I was sitting there in the icy darkness just staring off into the trees that I knew were there but couldn't see, one side of the trees suddenly lit up as though someone had turned a bright light on inside each of them. From the illumination I could see that a ground fog was rolling in. It was such an unusual phenomenon that my first instinct was to run and get my camera; but something greater than myself, told me to quiet myself and remain where I was. It lasted only three to four minutes at the most but during that time I came to realize with a certainty that whatever was going to happen in the following days would be okay.
Soon after the birds began their songs.
Tiffany sat by her bedside day after day waiting for her best friend to open her eyes. The nurses said they were baffled and didn't understand why she wasn't waking up.
Robyn arrived from Arizona. Again we gathered the family, including daughter-in-law, Rhiannon, and drove to the hospital on that gloomy, cold day. We got to see her that one last time, hold her warm hand and tell her we loved her.
We learned from the doctor that her brain had been "showered with strokes" and the ventilator was the only thing keeping her alive. Later that evening her parents would arrive and the doctor would advise they remove her from life-support and let her go. A decision no parent should ever have to make. It took them two days to finally gather the strength to let her slip away. But in our heart of hearts we knew she was already gone - had left us during the night of that first day.
And thus another season of mourning began. I longed for a thunderous rainstorm. I wanted something strong and torrential to wash these feelings away. The emptiness in our hearts and in our lives was so heavy I could barely breathe. The pain so unbearable that I wanted to fade away into nothingness so I'd never have to feel this depth of grief and sorrow again.
Initially I thought this type of grief was very different from what I felt when Christian took his life. He was in such emotional pain. He felt there was no hope, no future, nothing that could save him from the depression and despair.
Heather's drinking might have started from a desire to have fun but as her life unfolded it began to take on that same depression and emotional pain that Christian felt. Heather struggled with self worth issues her entire life. Issues only made worse by bad, destruction relationships. She used alcohol to ease the pain. I do not think that she ever thought that it would eventually take her life.
Regardless of the form their deaths took, they are both gone at the tender age of 32 and leave in their wake huge voids in our lives. Where there was once sparkle and glitter, there is nothing.
heart breaking - words can't.........
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