Originally Posted by petep9000
We are only a year apart, I'm 38 and she's 39. We were raised like twins. On Jan 25th last year, my sister took to her bed with a severe headache and nausea. After a few hours, she went to get up out of bed to vomit and she collapsed onto the floor and struck her head on her night-table. Her husband simply put her back into her bed and left her there. The next morning, Jan 26th, my mother wanted to know why Robin was still in bed. Her husband said she still had a headache and "oh, by the way did you hear that thump? she fell out of bed."
My mother fell into pieces and demanded her call 911 immediately which he did. The paramedics took her away to the hospital and told my mother that my sister's pressure was "through the roof". My mother said when the ambulance people were carting her off into the ambulance, my sister (who was only half-conscious) was moaning "Mommy...mommy". They rushed her to our nearest hospital which also happened to be a Level I Trauma Center. She was rushed into the OR immediately and after 8 hours of surgery the surgeon came out and chatted with us for approximately 2 minutes. He said she had a subarachnoid aneurysm, an artery in her brain had developed a little ballon-like pocket which ruptured and spilled large amounts of blood into her brain cavity. He explained that he 'clipped' the aneurysm but because she had been in bleeding state for 2 days, there was no way he could know what kind of damage she had. My brother asked "what's her prognosis?", and the surgeon shook his head and said "All I can tell you is that for this moment right now she's alive and I saved her life. I can't tell you what tomorrow will bring or if she will even make it through the night."
Well, she did make it through the night. After a few days the breathing tube was removed and she could breath on her own. In a few weeks, she could open her eyes and move her fingers. In a month, she was talking and finally after 35 days in ICU she was transferred to a rehab hospital. After a few weeks there, she was transferred to a nursing home, and finally came home in April.
This person who came home? Well, she looks like Robin. And she can walk, and talk, feed herself, tie her shoes, read and write and other tasks. She'll never be able to drive again because damage to her optic nerve destroyed her periferal vision. But this person is not Robin. The 'essence' of Robin, that certain 'something' that made her what she is, is gone. I feel, and others in my family as well as her 4 children that are under 18 years old feel, that the old Robin is gone and replaced with a sad, fragile stranger. And this is why I am grieving today. Because I know I am supposed to be happy that she survived, but yet in a way she didn't and this is what makes it so conflicting.
Sorry to ramble on like that, but this was something that needed to come out of me today, like a bad spirit.
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