The C-word

I wasn't sure I could write about this.
And firstly, it's not my C-word, but someone close to me.
It's frightening and it's not even happening to me.
Somehow that seems worse to me; to have to stand by, helpless, powerless, fearful.

Probably not as fearful as the person to whom it is happening.

I had the good fortune to marry a nice man on my third try at matrimony.
MySpouse also happens to come from a nice family. A fairly large family of six siblings.
MySpouse and his five younger sisters.
His sibs think I lack, umm, polish, but they accept me as I am.
Becuz they care for me, I have come to care for them.

MySpouse's oldest sister, SisOne, had a mammogram with less than wonderful results.
Not cancer yet. Could that be less terrifying than 'cancer now' ?
I'm thinking probably not much.
So she has had, as we say in Iowa, a shitload of fear to deal with the last three weeks.

'Not cancer yet' would be enough to send anyone else running for the Jim Beam.

Besides the fear that any other woman would feel at the thought of cancer followed by a mastectomy, these sibs are still coping with the loss of their youngest sister.
SisFive was ill and died within four days.

She was hospitalized with chest pains.
At first, the chest pains seemed to be a heart attack.
But heart attacks come and go fairly quickly; they don't linger for two days.
More tests, another diagnosis, a move to a larger hospital in a larger city for surgery.
Only then did a doctor know the source of her chest pains.
And when the surgeon knew what caused her illness there was no treatment
that could save her.
The inner lining of her aorta had come loose and was blocking the flow of blood.
The surgeon could not repair it.

Something I never want to see again is a piece of someone's aorta.

The surgeon showed us how the inner lining had come loose on a piece of SisFive's aorta.
Among us, her 12-year-old son.
I hope he didn't have nightmares.
"Like a hose de-laminating", MySpouse said. I thought it was an apt,
albeit macho, description of what happened to SisFive to cause her death.

Her life ended so suddenly that somehow it didn't seem real.

I can still hear her voice in my mind and I only knew her for 8 years.
I can't begin to imagine what MySpouse and the remaining four sisters hear.
But I know they still hear her voice becuz it's only been 20 months since she passed away.

Now with SisOne having major surgery the demons are frolicking. SisOne is dealing with insult added to injury, fear upon fear.

Some of the siblings were at the hospital when SisFive died on the operating table.
Some were not. I know tho, that all of them will be at the hospital
when SisOne has surgery.

None of us want another loved one to slip away without a chance to say goodbye.
Please keep these nice people in your prayers.