New here - my story.

[NicoleMarie]

I just joined, mostly because I'm up late with a lot on my mind. I want to start off by saying that I don't have a particularly hard time with my losses, and I honestly don't understand why. But I wanted a place where I could still talk about it, talk to other people that have been through similar things. So, here goes.. my attempt at keeping long stories as short as possible.

I'm 23 years old and I've lost both of my parents, and one sister.

My dad passed away on July 11, 2006, he was 48. Three days after he walked me down the aisle. It was a firearms accident, so it was very unexpected. Yep, that one is easy to keep short and simple. I had a really hard time with his death and struggled for quite a while, he was the best father anyone could ask for. His personality was huge, almost everything I do or say or hear reminds me of him.

My mom passed away on December 14, 2010. On December 27, 2008 she went into the ER because she had a bad cough that kept getting worse until she was coughing up blood. She was diagnosed with double pneumonia, admitted for further testing, and diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer later that night. It's true, what they say about most lung cancer patients living two years or less. I had a much easier time with her death. Partially because it was expected, I had time to accept it. And partially because my dad was already gone. When he died, I often wondered how long she had. 3 years, 5 years? She was 47 when my dad died, I felt like I had no reason to think she only had a few years left. I guess I didn't believe they could live without each-other.

Now, I know this is the 'loss of a parent' section, but I'm throwing this in anyway because, well, it's an introduction and I might as well.

I just lost my sister on December 12. She was 21 years old. She had a disease called Autoimmune Hepatitis, which affected her liver. She had two liver transplants - we were weeks away from losing her before the first one when she was 15. That one eventually failed because she had gotten a blood disorder from the new liver, she became diabetic, and some of the disease still remained in her bile ducts. On her 17th birthday, she had her second transplant. The blood disorder was gone, the diabetes subsided, and she was healthy. February 4, 2012 would have been five years since her second transplant, five years of almost no health problems. It would have been a major milestone, she had NEVER gone five years without any major health problems.

About a month and a half ago, she went into the hospital because her weekly bloodwork didn't look good. They found that she had a virus that was attacking her liver, and there was a shut in her groin (artery) from the first transplant, it had gotten infected. They started treating the virus, and also found a bleed in her bowel. To keep a long story a bit shorter, things went up and down for a while. She went downhill, her lungs and kidneys shut down, but a few days later she was starting to breathe on her own again and her kidneys were functioning. Then, on the weekend of the 10th, my youngest sister suddenly called and said they weren't expecting her to make it through the night. The internal bleeding had gotten too bad, there was no way she would make it through surgery, there was nothing else they could do. She was taken off life support on Monday December 12.

We were best friends. We had the best spot in the family - wonderful parents, an older brother, and a baby sister.. we were the middle children, and we were inseparable. We did everything together when we were younger, we would talk on the phone for hours and almost never went 10 minutes without laughing about something unless the conversation was really serious. She was the most like our dad, she had the best sense of humour, the best taste in music.

I feel like I'm dealing with this surprisingly well, but I still need a place to share stories, occasionally vent, and maybe offer support to others.

We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. -Romans 5:3-4

[debbie8800]

wow you are strong and seem to be handling everything quite well unlike the rest of us.