Sad Day - Death in the Family

I'm not sure if this is the place to do this, but I'm wide awake while everyone else is sleeping and I need to let it out.

My little brother, Brian, passed away this morning around midnight!

He was only 24 years old! He was just in the GF hospital for 3 weeks and had only been out for a week and a half. He had some problems with his blood being too thin and he had an infection in his shoulder dialysis catheter, which they removed and put a temporary one in his other shoulder. They sent him home and was getting IV antibiotics after each dialysis treatment here in DL. He was scheduled for surgery in GF on Tuesday to get his permanent catheter put in his other shoulder.

I saw him on Saturday around 4pm, he had called and asked if I would get him McDonalds. All he wanted was some french fries and a pop, so I went to get it and took it over to him. He looked pretty pekid and yellow, but he's been that way since he was in the hospital. His feet were all swollen and he said it was just because they weren't able to take off much fluid at dialysis on Friday. He also said he wasn't able to sleep very well when laying down because it was a little hard to breathe, so he'd just sit on the edge of the bed and doze off and on. He made a couple of his usual snide jokes, so I figured he was ok.

Tonight he called Wendy around 10:30and said he had thrown up and asked if she could come help him clean up cuz he was so weak. He hadn't eaten anything since the food I brought him yesterday and Wendy said she saw that wasn't even half gone when she had went over. He looked pretty rough and he said he wanted to go to the ER because he was very weak and having shortness of breath and his vomit was black! Wendy called the ambulance to get him rather than risk him falling and her not being able to help him. She went to the hospital and asked what he wanted her to do. He told her to go home and he'd have the nurses call her. ---It was fairly common for us to take him in and then come back to check on him. He knew it would just involve us sitting there and waiting for test results, so he was always okay with that. And he would generally know if there would be something big wrong with him. --- So close to midnight Wendy was at home when she got a call from the nurse saying that he was receiving CPR. She called me, Ryan drove her, and I came right after, our mom and Heather were on their way from Cando. I wasn't there for maybe 5 minutes and the nurse came out and delivered the news...they just couldn't do any more for him!!!!!!

OMG!! Pure shock is all I felt! Speechless! And filled with sobs! WOW!!! My baby brother is gone! I can't believe this is happening!

Turns out he was bleeding internally pretty bad. They aren't sure (or didn't tell us) where it was coming from, but it started filling up his lungs and stomach. He black stuff he threw up was all blood, and he threw up on the ambulance ride over and again at the ER. He was complaining about not being able to breathe, and then it happened. They did CPR for 45 minutes and couldn't get him back. They say it was a combination of bleeding, respiratory and kidney failure.

Wendy and I waited for mom and Heather to get there. After they were there and another set of tears were shed, we went in to say goodbye. More tears, hugging...tears and more hugging. He looked so peaceful and quite, yet so yellow and cold. I kept waiting for him to wake up or move or breathe...but he never did. We had a prayer service and had our last moments. We didn't leave the hospital until after 3am.

Now I can't sleep and can't stop crying. It seems so unreal to me. It feels like I'm writing a story about somebody else...not my little brother! I hope I didn't upset anyone, that definitely wasn't my point. I just needed to write in down...get it out...something, I don't know.

We'll wait to hear from the funeral home tomorrow, but they said they have 3 funerals tomorrow so I don't know when that'll be. The funeral will probably be at Gilbertson's with a gathering to follow at the hotel. I have no idea when it will be. I'm just assuming it won't be on Thursday since that's Thanksgiving. I'll let you know I guess.