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Big Sister
Experienced user
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Posts: 68
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 Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject: Just One Year.... |
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Just about one year ago my brother called me from the Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania to say that the doctors had found a tumor on his pancreas. He was shook up but optimistic that the surgery scheduled for a week later would take care of it. Geoff had just turned 61.
Fast forward. There never was any surgery. Within one week from the initial trip to Hershey, the team changed my brother's diagnosis from operable to in-, from one tumor to seven, from "confined to the pancreas" to "metastacized throughout the abdomen."
Eight weeks later my only brother, my only sibling, the only one left of my first family, husband to a grieving wife, father to two stunned children, a shadow of his former self, lay dead in a funeral home.
I know this is not an uplifting message. I know also that life goes on. In the year that Geoff has been gone there have been weddings, new babies coming, new jobs, new homes, new this, new that.
Old is the sorrow that still permeates my every cell, sorrow that grabs me ruthlessly in the night, sorrow that part of me died as well that day in December, sorrow that a life was cut so short so fast, sorrow that despite the love and hugs and prayers and songs, there was never any hope at all.
I will miss him forever. |
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freeio
Senior User
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 116
Location: Guntersville, Alabama
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:56 am Post subject: We shall meet again |
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Loss of a loved one is very difficult. We would seem to wish that our relationships here could go on forever, but that is not how it happens. Some of us go on before the rest, and leave holes in the lives of those who loved us. We pass on, and then there is the long wait to see you all on the other side as well.
Grief from this situation is perfectly normal, and is not to be minimized. The pain of loss does not just go away. Although we trust our souls and those of our loved ones to the One who made us, yet we miss them so very much. What was once near is now not available to us, and there is a hole in the fabric of our life.
It is easy for the outsider to dismiss the matter as if it should all just go away, and you should feel nothing by now. But the hole is a not hole in their lives, and so they have no earthly idea the magnitude of your loss, or how long it will take to not feel the acute pain from it. Your love will continue, as it well should, and while the pain of the moment will eventually fade, yet the feeling of loss never quite goes away.
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whipple procedure, Oct. 21, 2004
28 days of radiation
56 days of Chemo using Xeloda
diagnosed as progressive recurrent pancreatic adenocarcinoma (Stage IV) Jun. 20, 2006
was treated with gemcitabine, oxaliplatin, and tarceva, which all failed.
Cancer blog: http://diehlmartin.com/cancer.html |
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brainman
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Oct 2005
Posts: 4286
Location: Tennessee
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:02 am Post subject: Re: Just One Year.... |
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Pat, how devastating and tragic! Pancreatic cancer is so unfair. I grieve with you over the sudden, unexpected death of your brother. Just last month I remembered the deaths of my parents. My mother died over 9 years ago of GBM and my father died just over 1 year ago of ALL.
I know that I still feel the loss of both of them... rather intense pain at times. Since I live in their house, every day I am reminded of them. It is this mixture of bitter and sweet memories that make up my experience of grief now. There are not too many days when I cant function.
Your username makes sense to me now. You were a good big sister to your brother as I know I was a good son... most of the time anyhow 
My heart does go out to you, Pat.
_________________
Jim
Site Administrator and long-term cancer survivor
1992 Astrocytoma grade 2, left motor strip
2005 Recurrence this time said to be an Oligodendoglioma grade 3, same location.
My Story Part 1: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=7350
My Story Part 2: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8029
Blog http://jimhawkinsport.blogspot.com/ |
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