Life and Death

Life: So now almost another six months have gone by since my last post. It's funny how we take for granted that we have all the time in the world. Or maybe I just take time for granted...I don't know. The summer was filled with the most fun I have had in eons. Me and Rich took a trip to California! Getting on a plane and flying 3,000 miles away was beyond cathartic. Looking back, I wished then as I wish now...that I never had to come home. We arrived in San Francisco and my brother, Robert met us at the airport. We stayed in a very old, kitchy hotel at the gates of Chinatown...the Hotel Astoria. It was quite an experience! Robert couldn't believe the hotel and kept telling us that we had the absolutely biggest hotel room there is in San Francisco. It consisted of a very large bathroom, a bedroom and a fairly large living room area. It was perfect...and cheap, too. Robert took us all over on his whiplash tours...Crookedest Road...The Grubstake...Pier 39...Union Square...Little Henry's...200 miles up and down the California coast. In between me and Rich explored on our own...cable cars...BART...even a San Francisco Giants game where Rich was a big hit in his Knicks tee shirt. On our sixth day Robert picked us up and drove 150 miles to his home in Mokelumne Hill. Way up high on a mountain...you have to experience Scream Like a Girl Hill to really appreciate it. We enjoyed the laid back, hippie-like atmosphere. We got to explore Big Trees National Park and a Gold mining town. Robert's partner Russ and Russ's brother Kevin were our trusty compatriots during this vacation, along with some memorable characters from the mountain...especially Dewey. But all too soon it was time to go home and back to real life and work.
Death: No one knows when their time will be up...when their life will be over. I wish that I had more time to prepare for death, but it snuck up...like a thief in the night. The Tuesday after Labor Day I was in my office working when my cell phone pinged that I had a text message. It was from my sister, Teri. She wrote that she was in St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh...in the ICU. I texted her back that I could leave work. She texted me back that I didn't have to. I texted her back that I was coming. She texted me back "OK." That's how I knew it was bad. Teri O'Keefe-Fox would have been 47 years old on November 21st. But after three long, horrible weeks in the ICU, she died on September 24, 2013 from multiple organ failure due to complications from Sepsis. At first they thought she had pneumonia but tests later revealed Wegener's Vasculitis and it caused severe damage to her lungs. This was not Teri's first diagnosis of Vasculitis. In 1987 she lost her kidneys to this horrible disease. She was lucky to have received a kidney transplant from our mother. And when that one failed, another kidney transplant from our baby sister, Jeni. It was this past summer that marked 20 years since that transplant. In those years Teri married, had a daughter and then a son, went to college and grad school and became a teacher, traveled and cultivated a lifelong love of Walt Disney World. She lived more in her 46 years then 3 people that age put together. I guess she knew her time would be shortened. But she was told she would recover from this Vasculitis. It would be a very, very long recovery. But a week into her stay in the ICU her bowel perforated. This set in motion a devastating chain of events...a deadly chain. Sepsi...horrible...demeaning...uncontrollable...invaded every nook and cranny of Teri's body until it killed her. I think her death was preventable. I know people will say it's just my grief talking, but Teri keeps nagging me in my brain. She shouldn't have died. This is something for another time, though. It's been 6 weeks since my sister died. I can hardly type it, let alone say it out loud without choking up. Nothing feels normal. I feel lost...like I don't belong anywhere anymore. It's so frustrating and maddening and sad. And once again my blog has gotten away from being what I wanted it to be...just a place where I could bitch about my husband's brain tumor and never ending and ongoing after-effects. How I wish it was just about that!