my shameful secret: full story no pix!
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finding_sammi
Posts: 207
It first started at the beginning of January 2005; of course it probably began way before then, but that’s when she first noticed the signs; not that she knew what they meant back then – it would be many months before things became clear to her, and by then it would be too late. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Everyone says so...
So the beginning of Jan, she joined her family as always at a curry house to celebrate her father~in~law’s birthday. She left early with her husband because she felt ill, and indeed was ill; throwing up in the bathroom... maybe it was something she ate? That’s what she first thought, but the sickness didn’t go away; in fact it got worse.
It wasn’t until she suffered the humiliation of throwing up in her own fireplace, because the nausea came on so quickly that she literally couldn’t help but throw up where she sat, that realized something was wrong and would need to see her G.P. She told no-one, except maybe David. Maybe she told Dave, but no-one else knew she’d been so ill she couldn't even make it to the bathroom. She was embarrassed you see; even when she was cleaning up her own vomit and knowing something was wrong, she still felt bad that she'd thrown up in the living room. And, she still went to work – where neither her co~workers, nor the mentally and physically disabled people she cared for, noticed that she needed to rush to the bathroom, more and more frequently to throw up. That isn’t a criticism of them by the way; I merely mention it because I want you to see how brave she was, and how foolish! Because the fact that she never, would never take time off work despite how ill she felt, would come back to haunt her: well you can’t be that ill, you manage to go to work every day...
I’m going to skip to July 2005, to the day we went to watch our children at sports day... it’s seven months later, she’s still throwing up: doesn’t even try to manage a proper meal anymore, maybe a cup of tea or a biscuit, everything just makes her so violently ill; she’s losing weight at an alarming rate and when she takes her sun glasses off for a moment, I’m shocked to see her eyeballs stick out of her face like ping~pong balls. She’s been backwards n forwards to the G.P and had anti~sickness tablets (which made her throw up), and had many tests, although significantly not the one test that would have revealed everything and no doubt, saved her life... that particular test was still over two months away.
I often think of that afternoon, sitting on school chairs out on the field, in glorious sunshine, watching the children do their races. It was a happy afternoon. But in retrospect, I didn’t enjoy it enough: I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d remember seeing her ‘well’.......................
It’s August now, and we all know (can see) she is dangerously ill. She and David, and the children have just come back from a fortnight in Turkey, where she was so ill that she couldn’t even drink water without throwing up, and the hotel doctor wanted to admit her to hospital, saying: the only thing keeping you alive at the moment is sucking ice lollies. She insisted on coming home and was taken to the G.P as soon as they got back; it was a Friday. You need to know that for the next part to make sense. The G.P. was shocked at my sister’s condition and admitted that he didn’t know how she was still actually alive, so he phoned the hospital only to be told to send her home, with instructions to come into hospital on Monday to be admitted for tests. She would say later that she has no recollection of that weekend at all, except dream~like memories of being in bed, seeing faces and hearing voices, as she slipped in and out of consciousness.
Monday came and David took her to hospital where she would be a full five weeks before someone had the bright idea of putting a camera down her throat and analyzing the fluid she brought up, to find out just why this girl was so ill! And that’s when, in September 2005 my beautiful brave (and sometimes annoying) sister, found out she had cancer of the stomach and ophsophagus. And also, Hepatitis C, cancer of the aorta, and extensive liver and kidney damage. She also had hyperthyroidism and Graves Disease, but she already knew about those. Significantly, so did her G.P. which is why he failed to spot the classic symptoms of the two main cancers she had: or so he said in his bumbling apology. If he had have recognized the symptoms for what they were nine months previously, my sister would have undoubtedly received treatment and made a full recovery. Indeed she met a gentlemen, by chance, who was recovering from the same two cancers. He had a different G.P. of course, and as we have already agreed, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Exactly, one week after her diagnosis, Amanda was told that her condition was too far advanced to be curable and could only be given palliative care.
I am not going to share here, my thoughts and feelings about my sister’s tragic news: it is enough to say that I went home and sat outside long into the night, smoking and drinking bourbon, not wanting to feel or think much of anything to be honest. What I didn’t know then, but what I’ve come to realize since (been forced to acknowledge), is that I was taking the first steps into alcoholism, and to developing an eating disorder.
When I woke up terribly hungover the next day, it was a sunny Saturday. I remember it so well, waking up in my bed, sun streaming through the curtains, and thinking: it’s REAL! My sister’s gonna die.......
How could I eat when my sister couldn’t? That’s how I felt. So I stopped eating. I went without food for ten days. My nights were spent outside drinking and smoking, and begging God or the Universe to let it be me instead. It would make more sense if it was me that had to die. Please don’t correct me on this because it’s not something I still think, not really, I’m just telling of how I felt at the time... anyway, after 10 days without food, I cracked. I couldn’t help it. I was so hungry, and sick and weak. My head throbbed almost constantly. I was agitated and snappy and I just couldn’t do what my sister HAD to. So I gave in and ate something. I can’t even remember what I ate, just that I hated myself for being so weak and feeble, and being so angry with everyone who’d failed to save my sister, including me, and even Amanda herself, for getting the bloody cancer in the first place. Once I started eating, I couldn’t stop and put six stone on in 2 years. I think I was punishing myself with food. I’m not sure what I was thinking, just that after Amanda died I became severely depressed, and didn’t care that I was getting fatter and fatter. I went from being a uk size 12 to a 24/26.
She was beautiful still at the end, was Amanda, but bald from chemo and extremely emaciated. (She had a tube up her nose to attach liquid food directly to her stomach, but it made her throw up and gave her diarrhea, so invariably she just went without any sustenance, save from what little she got from ice lollies.) She was quite dark~skinned, with full African lips, so she looked like a famine victim: beautiful, brave, full of acceptance of her condition without anger or blame... but so bloody thin! I used to watch her walk across the room sometimes, and wonder how her stick~legs could manage to support her skeletal frame at all. And it broke my heart. I refused to feel sorry for her because she didn’t feel sorry for herself, but I was sorry and I was also so ****ing angry that there was nothing I could do to take it away from her. That anger had nowhere to go except inwards. I see that now. Food wasn’t a comfort; it was a punishment. I think I tried to destroy myself with food and alcohol because I felt so bloody angry and guilty. It’s funny but whilst I’ve been typing this and crying, I’m not sure if the tears are for Amanda or for me...
Please don’t judge me, I already know how pathetic I am. I'm really just sharing because I'm still here (alive) and still trying to get better (to be a good parent to my children), and I'm desperate enough now to try anything, even showing my shameful secrets to strangers! I also took the difficult step today of asking for professional help so maybe I will beat this thing after all
So the beginning of Jan, she joined her family as always at a curry house to celebrate her father~in~law’s birthday. She left early with her husband because she felt ill, and indeed was ill; throwing up in the bathroom... maybe it was something she ate? That’s what she first thought, but the sickness didn’t go away; in fact it got worse.
It wasn’t until she suffered the humiliation of throwing up in her own fireplace, because the nausea came on so quickly that she literally couldn’t help but throw up where she sat, that realized something was wrong and would need to see her G.P. She told no-one, except maybe David. Maybe she told Dave, but no-one else knew she’d been so ill she couldn't even make it to the bathroom. She was embarrassed you see; even when she was cleaning up her own vomit and knowing something was wrong, she still felt bad that she'd thrown up in the living room. And, she still went to work – where neither her co~workers, nor the mentally and physically disabled people she cared for, noticed that she needed to rush to the bathroom, more and more frequently to throw up. That isn’t a criticism of them by the way; I merely mention it because I want you to see how brave she was, and how foolish! Because the fact that she never, would never take time off work despite how ill she felt, would come back to haunt her: well you can’t be that ill, you manage to go to work every day...
I’m going to skip to July 2005, to the day we went to watch our children at sports day... it’s seven months later, she’s still throwing up: doesn’t even try to manage a proper meal anymore, maybe a cup of tea or a biscuit, everything just makes her so violently ill; she’s losing weight at an alarming rate and when she takes her sun glasses off for a moment, I’m shocked to see her eyeballs stick out of her face like ping~pong balls. She’s been backwards n forwards to the G.P and had anti~sickness tablets (which made her throw up), and had many tests, although significantly not the one test that would have revealed everything and no doubt, saved her life... that particular test was still over two months away.
I often think of that afternoon, sitting on school chairs out on the field, in glorious sunshine, watching the children do their races. It was a happy afternoon. But in retrospect, I didn’t enjoy it enough: I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d remember seeing her ‘well’.......................
It’s August now, and we all know (can see) she is dangerously ill. She and David, and the children have just come back from a fortnight in Turkey, where she was so ill that she couldn’t even drink water without throwing up, and the hotel doctor wanted to admit her to hospital, saying: the only thing keeping you alive at the moment is sucking ice lollies. She insisted on coming home and was taken to the G.P as soon as they got back; it was a Friday. You need to know that for the next part to make sense. The G.P. was shocked at my sister’s condition and admitted that he didn’t know how she was still actually alive, so he phoned the hospital only to be told to send her home, with instructions to come into hospital on Monday to be admitted for tests. She would say later that she has no recollection of that weekend at all, except dream~like memories of being in bed, seeing faces and hearing voices, as she slipped in and out of consciousness.
Monday came and David took her to hospital where she would be a full five weeks before someone had the bright idea of putting a camera down her throat and analyzing the fluid she brought up, to find out just why this girl was so ill! And that’s when, in September 2005 my beautiful brave (and sometimes annoying) sister, found out she had cancer of the stomach and ophsophagus. And also, Hepatitis C, cancer of the aorta, and extensive liver and kidney damage. She also had hyperthyroidism and Graves Disease, but she already knew about those. Significantly, so did her G.P. which is why he failed to spot the classic symptoms of the two main cancers she had: or so he said in his bumbling apology. If he had have recognized the symptoms for what they were nine months previously, my sister would have undoubtedly received treatment and made a full recovery. Indeed she met a gentlemen, by chance, who was recovering from the same two cancers. He had a different G.P. of course, and as we have already agreed, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Exactly, one week after her diagnosis, Amanda was told that her condition was too far advanced to be curable and could only be given palliative care.
I am not going to share here, my thoughts and feelings about my sister’s tragic news: it is enough to say that I went home and sat outside long into the night, smoking and drinking bourbon, not wanting to feel or think much of anything to be honest. What I didn’t know then, but what I’ve come to realize since (been forced to acknowledge), is that I was taking the first steps into alcoholism, and to developing an eating disorder.
When I woke up terribly hungover the next day, it was a sunny Saturday. I remember it so well, waking up in my bed, sun streaming through the curtains, and thinking: it’s REAL! My sister’s gonna die.......
How could I eat when my sister couldn’t? That’s how I felt. So I stopped eating. I went without food for ten days. My nights were spent outside drinking and smoking, and begging God or the Universe to let it be me instead. It would make more sense if it was me that had to die. Please don’t correct me on this because it’s not something I still think, not really, I’m just telling of how I felt at the time... anyway, after 10 days without food, I cracked. I couldn’t help it. I was so hungry, and sick and weak. My head throbbed almost constantly. I was agitated and snappy and I just couldn’t do what my sister HAD to. So I gave in and ate something. I can’t even remember what I ate, just that I hated myself for being so weak and feeble, and being so angry with everyone who’d failed to save my sister, including me, and even Amanda herself, for getting the bloody cancer in the first place. Once I started eating, I couldn’t stop and put six stone on in 2 years. I think I was punishing myself with food. I’m not sure what I was thinking, just that after Amanda died I became severely depressed, and didn’t care that I was getting fatter and fatter. I went from being a uk size 12 to a 24/26.
She was beautiful still at the end, was Amanda, but bald from chemo and extremely emaciated. (She had a tube up her nose to attach liquid food directly to her stomach, but it made her throw up and gave her diarrhea, so invariably she just went without any sustenance, save from what little she got from ice lollies.) She was quite dark~skinned, with full African lips, so she looked like a famine victim: beautiful, brave, full of acceptance of her condition without anger or blame... but so bloody thin! I used to watch her walk across the room sometimes, and wonder how her stick~legs could manage to support her skeletal frame at all. And it broke my heart. I refused to feel sorry for her because she didn’t feel sorry for herself, but I was sorry and I was also so ****ing angry that there was nothing I could do to take it away from her. That anger had nowhere to go except inwards. I see that now. Food wasn’t a comfort; it was a punishment. I think I tried to destroy myself with food and alcohol because I felt so bloody angry and guilty. It’s funny but whilst I’ve been typing this and crying, I’m not sure if the tears are for Amanda or for me...
Please don’t judge me, I already know how pathetic I am. I'm really just sharing because I'm still here (alive) and still trying to get better (to be a good parent to my children), and I'm desperate enough now to try anything, even showing my shameful secrets to strangers! I also took the difficult step today of asking for professional help so maybe I will beat this thing after all
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Replies
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Oh my word, you sweet woman, you're NOT pathetic and please don't beat yourself up or feel ashamed over all of this!!
It's a heartbreaking story and it's NOT a shame you had a hard time dealing with your sisters death.
I think you're very brave writing down this story and even braver to have asked for professional help. You just choose a not so healthy way to deal with your grief and there's no shame in that. You're recognising that it's a selfdistructing way and you need help to deal with it in a better way and that's the biggest step you could have taken. That proves you're a strong woman and you can deal with this in a good way.
It won't be easy, you will have to go through the grief and pain to get past it, there's just no way 'around' it 'cause - as you've experienced - if we try to get around our pain and grief, it will eventually backfire. The only way to deal with these kind of things and deal with them so we can go on with our lives, is dive right in and go right through it, no matter how hard that might be and how deep we have to go. Feel the pain and allow it to be there. Allow yourself to cry, scream and be angry, at the world, at yourself, at your sister... I think it's so good and brave of you that you found the courage to ask for help with this.
You can do this, I believe in you, so start believing in yourself.0 -
You have shown such courage in sharing this! I wish you peace and success as you move forward.0
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I wish you the best as well, don't ever feel afraid to seek help from those around you! Live the life your sister didn't have the chance to live, do what you want and go after your dreams and goals! Life is too short to waste it.
Don't punish yourself, we all make mistakes in life. Just learn from them and from others' mistakes and live life to its fullest. Allow yourself to grieve but move towards happiness and time will heal wounds enough to feel joy when your sister comes to your thoughts and mind.
Be grateful for what you have and enjoy life!0 -
You should have NO shame and NOT call yourself pathetic. I hope your story can inspire others to watch for the signs and be cautious in matters of health. Remember your sister in a positive light and not her physical state at the end. You know she is watching over you and not wanting you to hurt or beat yourself up. I pray that your soul finds comfort and your mind finds peace to put a positive spin on this situation to help others.0
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(BIG HUG!) You are doing the right thing by writing this out and seeking help! Hope you feel better & take care!0
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I have no words.
I am glad you are here.:flowerforyou:0 -
You don't know how I felt reading this... I knew the prognosis before you wrote it...
*hugs* MY mother passed away from Easophageal cancer 4 years ago... *HUGS* I am so sorry for you.
Please know you are strong for sharing - NOT weak or pathetic! Know that there are people here who will listen and be a place you can lean on when you need.
I have to go cry now..0 -
There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You found a way to cope with, and ultimately survive, an extraordinarily painful ordeal. Now it’s time to work on healing yourself, and you’ve taken the first step. You are a beautiful, compassionate person who deserves to be healthy and happy.0
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You are not pathetic, and nothing you have written is shameful! It is a beautiful, but heartbreaking story of your love for your sister. You're right, hindsight is 20/20, and sometimes I think that's the cruelest thing of all. No amount of 'would've, should've, could've' can bring a loved one back. 12 years ago, my dad died after a malady of errors and complications followed what should have been a routine heart surgery. The knowledge that it could have been prevented makes it so much harder to reconcile the loss.
I'm happy you've sought the help you need to get you through this. It won't be a short or easy path, but I hope you find peace.0 -
thank you for sharing your story. thank you for making me pause in my crazy world and step into your shoes for a moment.
thank you for sharing some of your pain, and for some of your insight.
your words may have helped more than you thought.
may your sister rest in peace
xx0 -
I am so sorry for your loss. There is nothing to be ashamed of... we all have difficulty dealing with the death of a loved one. There are no right and wrong ways to mourn and there is no set time frame. Now is the time to become happy and healthy for your sister. You already know that and sound like you are ready for it! She would not want her cancer to destroy two lives. She would want you to enjoy your life. With every step forward, plant her smiling face firmly in your mind and use that image as inspiration in your journey.0
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I am so sorry for your loss. You are not pathetic and it took a lot of courage to write this. I hope you find strenght from all the support you can get here.
The best of luck to you.0 -
please have no shame. I'm sitting here drinking my tea, reading your story. I literally have tears in my eyes right now. I could not imagine losing my sister, or brother. Especially due to incompetence. I'll motivate where I can, be strong.0
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I am so very sorry for your loss and your ordeal. It is so very brave of you to journal publically and sort out your feelings surrounding this terrible time. I'm glad that you felt safe enough to share and will hopefully accept the support offered. Sometimes that's a very hard thing to do. Sometimes hindsight, though clear and 20/20 is like dragging your knuckles across a cheese grater and then dipping them in lemon juice.
I've also known loss and am here and would be happy to listen if you ever need to talk, vent, or just need a sounding board.0 -
So very sorry for your loss. It seems like you were in a very dark place for a period of your life.
We all deal differently with the loss of loved ones.
Good luck to you for the future, you are ready to move on now for you and your family.0 -
I know it doesn't matter how many of us tell you that you have no reason to feel pathetic. All of us had triggers that caused us to reach our unhealthy weights and I am sure most are not for events as tragic and painful as those you have dealt with.
Thank you for sharing your story. I can only hope that the fact that it could help others will bring you some peace. I really think this will be a first step for you in getting your emotional health back in check. I think that will be an important for you before you can REALLY work on your physical health.0 -
I see nothing that you should be ashamed of. You suffered a terrible loss.
I wish you the best in your journey to a happy and healthy life.0 -
You made a huge step by coming here and sharing your broken heart with us.
Please live the fullest life possible in honor of your sister, I can promise she would want no less.
There is absolutely NO shame in this story!! Heartbreaking, yes, but many positive thoughts are coming your way :flowerforyou:0 -
I have to leave my desk to cry, I feel for you, grief is powerful and we all tackle it in different ways. You are brave to share your story, you certainly have nothing to feel guilty about, and you are NOT pathetic in any way. You managed to speak up and ask for help, lots of us here know how hard it can be to get the courage together to do that, well done! There are lots of people here who are willing to support and encourage you - count me as one of them!0
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You are in NO WAY pathetic!! You are strong, wonderful, and compassionate. Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry you've had to go through this. I can't imagine watching my sister go through that...that is so heartbreakingly tragic. I'm very glad that you decided to reach out for professional help. Sometimes we can't navigate through the mud and muck of our lives alone and we need a little help: there is no shame in that.
Thank you again for sharing your story. Best of luck on your journey. Stay strong and live your life as your sister would want you to. :flowerforyou:0
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