A year ago...

WARNING: This is not a happy go lucky post about exercise adventures, it is about my experiences over the past year with my brother. Part of it is done to fulfill my duty to have the orange ribbon on the side of my blog, but a majority of it is to fulfill my duty as a sister, to let others know about my brother. That being said, remember, I do not take pride in myself as a writer, so this writing does not stand up to what it should be to be writing about such a wonderful person. But it had to be done...

As I start getting ready for my summer adventures, I can't help but think back to how hard it was for me last year to pack up. I go to the same place every summer, and have always planned on going back every year, but last year that was different, last year I was going to drop it all and stay home.

Last year, in April I returned from church to a sleepy hungover roommate, and a friend from across the dorm that I knew liked to sleep in, and I knew that something was up. My roommate said "you need to call your aunt" and when I asked why, she said "I don't know." That phone call proved to be one of the hardest I've ever had to make in my life, it went something like this:
Me: Hi AP! What do you need?
AP: I have some bad news, is someone around for you?
Me: Yes, what's wrong?
AP: Your mom called this morning, and Randy's in the hospital. They diagnosed him with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, and he's really sick. They're not quite sure what this means, and they haven't determined how bad it truly is yet. Your mom wants you to call her, and I'm on my way over to come talk to you.
Me: Silence
AP: Are you okay? Are they helping you?
Me: Yes, I'll see you in a few minutes.

My roommate did know why I needed to call her, that's why she had recruited my other friend also to help me cope with this news. They grabbed my faithful blankey and just stood there, hugging me. I didn't know what to do, this couldn't be true, in my eyes, my brother was perfect, and there was no way he could be sick...but he was.

After talking to my mom, she assured me that I needed to finish up my last week and a half at school rather than talk my way out of finishing up and coming home because there was nothing I could do at home, he was too sick to know or care that I was there, and they didn't even know what would come of it yet. So I stayed, and packed up to come home as soon as I could get out of there.

Mom came up to drive me home after my last final, and after hours of driving, we went straight to the hospital. There's nothing like seeing your brother sick in the hospital for the first time, it was so bad that I nearly passed out.

He went through his first batch of chemo, and after a bit was out of the hospital, and it became my job to cook and clean for him. The two months of doing that were two of the best months ever. I drove the hour to Tampa every day to cook him something, generally hamburger helper or spaghetti, because doctor's orders said everything had to be cooked thoroughly. I also made him sandwiches of 3 slices of turkey, two slices of hard salami, a piece of provalone, and some mayonnaise, which he always acted like were the most delicious things he had ever tasted.

It wasn't the cooking and cleaning that I loved, but the time that we got to spend together. MB bought him a canasta set, which the two of us learned to play together, and played every day that I went, until he got too tired and went to take a nap. We had a multitude of other games to play, but this was our favorite, because it was OUR game even though MB had bought it. When I did have to leave, we would sometimes even get online and play it together so that we could somehow be together.

There were lots of other things we did, too, like drive around to try to find various government buildings to file for different things, make grocery lists, watch movies, and McGyver.

Two of the best months of my life...

It came time for me to make my annual trip to Western New York, and I just didn't want to leave him behind. He was sick, and no one knew if he was going to make it through everything or not, and I wanted to stay to do as much for him as I could. He somehow found out that I was debating whether or not I should go, and he called to tell me that I absolutely had to go, that if he needed me he would tell me to come home and that I couldn't give it up. So I listened.

I went, and he continued his chemo. Mid-summer he was accepted into a cancer hospital, and I received the request to have my blood tested to see if we matched for a stem-cell transplant. My sister and I matched each other, but not him.

devastation.

The weekend I was home between New York and going back to school, we found out that they found someone with as near perfect a match as you can find without being related. This gave me hope that I would have my brother forever.

He finished his chemo, and was due for his transplant December 6. I asked for special permission to leave school a week and a half early, and it was granted. I rushed home, and went straight to see him. He was looking great! The process hadn't started wearing on him yet, as I knew it soon would. He got progressively worse before he got better, but he always made me feel welcome in his room. I was his physical therapist, he would wait for me to come to do his therapy because he knew I liked to do it with him, so it was again, one of our special things. I was his cheerleader, when it came time to take pills when he had "forgotten how to swallow" he let me stay in the room for motivation while he kicked mom out. We had a special bond, and again, I loved spending that time with him.

I was hoping he'd make it home for my birthday, but he didn't. (He gave me two bottles of his water and my favorite type of candy that I had put out for the nurses as my presents). Instead of my birthday present, he was our Christmas Present and he came home December 23. We spent Christmas together, and things seemed to be going well, but then he started developing stomach pains. They were getting progressively worse, and on December 31 he called my mom and they decided that it was best to take him back to the hospital.

Through various methods, like CT scans and MRIs, they couldn't find what was wrong, so decided to do orthroscopic surgery. In the process of that, they still couldn't find anything, so did a full operation and could still find nothing. When I went to visit him, he couldn't really speak to us, and could hardly pay attention to what was going on. It seemed like a slippery downhill slope...

We went and visited him each day, seeing him with various devices attached to him, and it was really rough. I would sit with him while he would be telling about how to get to Saturn, and how to fix the boosters, and playing the piano, and just completely dopey from the medications. There were funny times, like when we went to move him up in the bed and my aunt messed up and said "oops, I messed up" and Randy said "Why am I not surprised", sad times, like when he would get upset and inconsolable, and times I'll never forget, like when he would get a big grin when he realized I walked into the room, and when he told me that I was a great sister to have.

Again, it came time for me to move on and go back to school, which I seriously debated, but then I thought back to him telling me that I had to go to New York, so I knew I had to go to school, if nothing else for him. So I did.

I was in constant communication with home, through my mom, my aunt, his friends, the email group that everyone emailed to when they visited, and it was really helpful to get everyone's feedback on his progress. It started seeming like he was going to make it, except his liver numbers just weren't' quite right.

Then, on January 29, mom called and said that his liver was just not working like it should, and that they were taking him off of everything except for his pain medicine because we didn't want him to suffer through the disease any more. I was ready to come home, but she said that since he had such a good heart it might take a while, so I was to just stay at school and wait. I talked to everyone, went to my amazing cousin's house to start calming down, and started thinking about how I knew that at least it meant he wouldn't be suffering any more.

At about midnight, my mom called and told me that he had died, and that at least he had gone quickly so that he wasn't suffering any more. I made arrangements to meet my sister in Pittsburgh and fly home with her so that it would be just one trip to the airport for my mom.

It's been hard since then...sometimes I find myself just missing him and not knowing what to do, and other times, I find myself knowing that what I'm doing has something directly correlating to him and that he's still with me because without him I wouldn't have the knowledge necessary to do what I'm doing.

This is where I will end for now, it's not easy writing about this, but I knew I had to at some point. This is Randy. This is my brother. This is one of the most influential people in my life. He always has been, and he always will be.