Bubba

For the past 3 months I have been holding on to hope.  Holding on to the notion that my brother, who I call Bubba, would get better.  When I think back on things, it seems that he had been sick for a long time.  A cold that seemed to linger and a hoarse voice after that.  Another cold, fevers, chills. 

One day back in June, on Fathers Days, I was at my Mom’s house and I saw my brother as he was preparing to go into the downtown area to treat himself to some Father’s Day activities.  I asked him how he felt, He told me that he really wasn’t feeling all that well, but that he wasn’t going to just lay around in the house all day.  So, I told him to have a good time and enjoy himself.

I had spoken with my Mom earlier and she told me that he hadn’t really been feeling well for a couple of weeks.  She said he complained of having back and/or side pain and that it had been difficult for him to breathe.

One day, I think it was a few days later, I got a text from my brother that said he didn’t feel good, not breathing well, and that he was on his way to ER.  He texted me when he got there and said, “they say I’m only breathing with half of a lung.”  I instantly felt a sink in my own chest.  Later they took him and admitted him to the hospital with a diagnosis of Pneumonia.  He was put on oxygen.

A few days later he was still in the hospital and they had been draining the fluid from his lungs and for a minute it seemed that he was on his way to recovery, but they wanted to run more test.  After that set of test, they told us that he had contracted C-Diff infection from the hospital and on top of that they told us he had Mesothelioma.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  They gave us a plan that they had put in place for him to start a healing process.  Not long after that we found out, after he went to another hospital, that it wasn’t Mesothelioma at all….my brother had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Renal Cell Carcinoma.

“What the hell, how in the hell?” were the first thoughts to cross my mind.  The doctor said she didn’t like to give out the “numbers” but she said it could be 6 months to 1 year, maybe longer if he was able to get treatment, and he couldn’t get treatment until the C-Diff infection was cleared up.

Back and forth between home and the hospital he went, and I pretty much, so did my mother, watched as my brother began to deteriorate right before my eyes.  He couldn’t eat because he didn’t like the taste of anything.  On days that he had a taste for something, he couldn’t keep it down.  Then his throat began to get sore and the infection in his belly reoccurred and he ended up back in the hospital.  He was back in there for about 2 weeks and on August 3, 2013 my Bubba died.

Bubba was 49 years old and he was the type of person that was full of life.  I mean I never met a person that had so much life in them the way he did.

He loved to dance, he loved to be with his friends and family and act out old movies that he had seen and became his favorites.  In his lifetime he had been a model and mentor to some.  He was a very creative person.  To watch him just wither away from us has done something to me that I can’t explain.

I’ve heard of people contracting all sorts of cancers and beating it.  I asked God why my brother couldn’t be one of those.  Why couldn’t he be a “survivor”  Why couldn’t he come home well one more time. Why had any of and/or all of this happened in the first place. How long had he been sick.  

They say that this form of cancer is very aggressive….it seems that it took my brother right out of here without so much as giving us the smallest chance to fight.

I’m so torn by all of this.  I sit and just gaze off sometimes because I think that its just not true.  I still have his last text he sent to me on my cell phone when I texted him good morning for the last time, although I didn’t know it would be the last time.  I still expect to see him when I go to my mom’s house.  I still expect to connect with him on Face Book.  So much is going on inside of me right now, and I feel like I’m rambling, but so what.  My Bubba, the one person in the world that I’ve shared a relationship with, outside of my parents, aunts, and uncles, for my entire life is gone.  He’s gone. He’s gone.