(05-09-2017, 07:04 PM)Popster Wrote: The Rest of the Story:

Yesterday I thought I would write more about my sister Christine...and then I decided not.  It seemed to me a little self indulgent.
Today I see another post, this one by Denman66...and now I am tempted to talk again.  It seems I am being encouraged, so I will succumb to the opportunity to pay more respect to my sis who affected me and others in such deep ways.

If nobody reads this...I will still be happy I wrote it.  If it helps anyone in anyway, it will be Christine's legacy.

We lived on the Southside of Chicago.  Doctors told my family that Christine would not live if she remained in the cold and windy city. They predicted pneumonia would take her life.  The curvature of her spine was so great as to cause her ribs to intrude on her heart and lungs.  My family decided to move west to California.  I had no idea of what was in store and how that decision would change the lives of everyone in our family.  The Santa Fe railroad trip west was a magnificent adventure.

We ended up in Palo Alto....so far removed from the south side of Chicago that it could have been a different planet.  We all thrived in the sunshine wholesomeness that was then.  Christine flourished, all the while suffering greatly. She had no use of either leg, was breathing via a tracheotomy, completely dependent on all of us...her family.  Always smiling, never complaining, she was an immense pleasure to be around.  I learned to suppress some of my own needs in order for her to be the family priority...all of us did. None of us ever resented giving her all the special treatment she deserved and needed.  My mother in particular was an angel of God.  How she took care of all of us while working full time was a thing to behold.  I was still young, simple, naive and yet I knew.

So, my first Christine lesson was being able to "second" my own desires for her sake.  
My second lesson was to see how her new friends would accommodate Christine in such unselfish ways.  Pushing her in her wheel chair to the shopping center, or just down the street to their own homes to include her in their families....I learned that peeps can be wonderful, caring, unselfish.  I have to admit that I really admired the way her friends accepted her and brought joy to her...that lesson still affects me today.

Christine's health was not doing well. Always threatened by her own body.  Doctors always probing with good intentions but poor judgement and even worse techniques...such as the halo I described earlier.  That halo/Harrington rod combination required that she be interned for months at the local Stanford Hospital.  When I would visit her I could barely control my horror and sadness...oh how I wanted to beat the shit out those responsible.  When she would cry, I asked my mother if she was in great pain. She said Christine was tired and fearful of the many many daily injections and was weary of it all.

Lesson three.  I can't do a damn thing about it but be there and show my love.  This lesson proved invaluable when my mother was dying many years later.  This is also when I learned to judge and mistrust Doctors.

A few years later the Stanford University Hospital began a new addition: the Stanford Children's Hospital...later to become the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, a world renowned medical resource and research facility.  Christine was one of their first patients....financed by that "Community Chest" organization made famous in the game of Monopoly.

It was at this hospital that the final and most horrific medical ordeal occurred.  It was determined that Christine would not live past twenty if something wasn't done about the crowding of her heart and lungs due to the curvature of her spine causing her ribs to interfere with breathing and pressure on her heart.  After the failure of the Halo/Harrington rod procedure, the only course of action left was to remove some of her ribs, thus relieving the pressures.  Our family agreed to the surgery...really left with no other choices.
This was a dangerous surgery...one of life and death.  Our family huddled together and we all wished and prayed.  When it was over, we were told it was a success...BUT...the Doctors had accidentally cut nerves in her left side that would make her left arm useless forever.......WTF, are you kidding me. How can this be, how can God allow this. This makes no sense.  This wonderful "Christ" like girl named Christine, who doesn't have any use of her legs and RELYS on her arms for everything is now limited to one arm.  This is so wrong that I have never gotten over it...never will.  It's "not in that bracket" as Kristoff said so succinctly.  What's the friggin lesson here? What am I to learn here...that life is not fair?  I already know that!!!  WTF.  My anger and sadness knew no boundaries..then.

Christine survived the operation, never stopped smiling and got on with her life...I did too, but sometimes I did stop smiling.
Lesson four: Shit happens, deal with it and move on as best you can.....aaaarrrgh.

The final lesson:  Years later, I graduate from University and take my meager savings and buy a one way ticket to Europe. I live and travel for two years and end up as an apprentice shipwright in Denmark. I am living on an old Baltic Trader and at a youth hostel. Egon, the care taker of the hostel and one of the village's mailmen, comes running up to the ship, jumps aboard and scrambles down the stairs to the Captain's quarters (where I lived while not at the hostel), he is yelling my name...he is saying he has a telegram and he is warning me that it is not good news.  I brace myself, I am scared, I have been away two years from my family and I KNOW something has happened.  The Telegram from my mother simply said "Christine died yesterday morning, I am sorry to tell you".  
Christine has died?  How can this be?  "They" said that all the surgeries and all the procedures and all the suffering was to help her live...WTF.  Was it all for nothing?  

In the end, Christine died from heart failure due to taking Darvon for many years. I am sure it helped eased her pain and made life more bearable....but in the end it killed her.

The lesson?  With suffering comes wisdom, suffering sows forgiveness, suffering is the stuff of life.  Without it, there is no joy, no evolution, no understanding.  I learned to embrace my sufferings (not entirely).  I wouldn't be me if Christine wasn't her.  Ode to joy.

A few years later, while reminiscing in my own mind...I wrote a poem to my mother about Inkie (Christine's dog), Christine and my mother. I found it yesterday and I still like it...it says what I wanted to say and still touches me.

Ode to Inkie, Christine and you:

Popcorn, tennis balls, sneaky exits.
Love, affection, understanding and patience.
Remarkably intelligent with the sad eyes of
an always remembered sister.
Always expressing love....inhibited only
by those who could not receive it.

Christininkie...I know there is a connection
because I can feel it.

I know, because we both shared your belly,
you gave us love's beginning.

                     I love you


gonna hit the "Post Reply" button before I change my mind

(05-06-2017, 06:32 PM)Popster Wrote: Darvon, Darvocet were pulled from market due to potentially fatal heart problems....my sister was one of the victims.