3 Years

Today marks 3 years since my brother David passed away. My reminders of this started last Thursday. My mother in law Doris was once again admitted to the hospital. Upon leaving the emergency department she was transferred to the same floor my brother was on. At least she's at the other end of the hallway.
When I was taking the elevator up the other day I heard the "code 4" announcement that I'd heard 3 years ago when I got the call about my brother coding.
So more so because of being emotionally stressed over Doris,trying to be strong for my husband, being tired, and being flooded with memories I had a little private cry.
I still get sad over the events of his death. I still wonder if more could have been done. I'm at peace with them doing all they could do to safe him and am at peace with the decision to have them stop after 15 minutes, just wonder if prior to those events if anything more could have been done.
I think more now of his laughter and constant antics. My brother loved to write-couldn't spell worth a damn, but wrote some funny and interesting life stories.
Many times I still want to pick up the phone and tell him something.
There's a new baby coming into the family and I know "Uncle David" would have been one of the first to see and hold the new addition. I miss sharing things with him.
At some point in time I know I'll be content with the memories, but for now I'm still a little sad about losing a brother to soon, and his daughters losing a great father. Their ability to achieve the things they are would make him proud.

We almost lost Doris the other day. As I stood among the family and heard the news I could see the reality of this hitting them. They were raised to respect their mother and when their father passed at a young age they began to make sure she was taken care of. She opted for the surgery and chemo to treat her cancer. We supported her and many of us kicked it up a notch to help her out. Her first two chemo treatments went good. After the 3rd treatment she ended up in the hospital for a week. One of the chemo drugs caused some brain swelling. She went back in twice after that, but for short stays. This current one was serious and attributed to her blood pressure spiking. She's naturally a worry wart so keeping it under control is critical. After three days of being unresponsive she woke in a panic. Two days later they still haven't been able to find the magic formula for the blood pressure. She's responsive and alert but once she starts thinking about the hospital and her bills-she's off again. People started going back to work yesterday after knowing she was somewhat out of danger. My thoughts are this is going to be awhile. The bad news is her doctor told us that she has to make a choice between the chemo or her blood pressure. Originally the plan was to shrink down the tumor they could not remove, until it was small enough, and then do the surgery. Doc says no to that now-she won't make it through the surgery. This news hasn't been broken to her yet, and I know she won't be strong enough for that for a while. She's a fighter usually, but she's just so damn tired.