this will be a heavy-hitter of a journal, so, fair warning if you choose to proceed. hospital, death, and memorial/funeral will be talked about.
this will probably be hard for you to read.
some of you have seen that I've redone my page (well, I've redone it several times, but that's beside the point here). there's a special box on the top left side. if you haven't seen it, no big deal. that's why I'm writing this journal. that, and to go into more, uh, detail, I guess.
now I know I have shared some things about my personal life, but not too much pertaining to my family. some of you know I have sisters.
my youngest sister, Hannah, died about a month ago, on the 26th of January.
this was sudden for everyone.
she was only 15.
she was a "cardiac baby," meaning she was born with heart complications and those complications would affect her life. she had three open heart surgeries by the age of 2. granted, you would have never known because her scar was only visible when she would wear something lower cut or more saggy, like a dress or sweater. she had to take medicine twice a day her entire life. but you would have never guessed she had complications, y'know? some cardiac babies are not as fortunate to have the life that she did. she was a miracle child.
but Hannah got sick. really sick. first it was the flu. but then the flu didn't go away. then she got dehydrated. then she got taken to the hospital in an ambulance. she was kept an extra night the hospital for observation..and if it weren't for that extra night, we would have lost Hannah a lot sooner than we did.
she had somehow picked up something bad that went into her bloodstream, which lead to her heart. the bacteria attached itself to the conduit (the "artificial" part of her heart). however, it took a few days for the doctors and nurses to figure that out.
Hannah was only fully conscious for the first few days she was in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit), from then until she passed she was on some level of sedation to prevent her from being uncomfortable or moving tubes.
it was a roller coaster, naturally. Hannah was on an hour-by-hour update schedule, which basically meant anything could happen at any given moment. some days were better than others.
my parents basically lived at the hospital, and understandably so. Dad always stayed the night with Hannah. Mom would come home to sleep and then re-join Hannah and Dad as soon as she woke up. I was there 2/3 of the time, and my other sister, Amanda, was there nearly everyday.
Hannah was admitted on a Tuesday. she went into cardiac arrest the first Saturday she was there. my parents, my Mom..was on her knees, praying, asking God to not take Hannah away from them yet...that night, we had several family friends visit us and come and comfort us, pray for us, y'know.
Hannah had her chest pumped for her for half an hour until the surgeon could come and get her on the ECMO machine (that is a machine that literally circulates your blood for you. it does most of the work). that was a long procedure, hardly anyone slept that night.
fast forward a few days, and Hannah is on several machines. at one point I think I counted 7 or 8. and that's not counting all of the separate IV's. there was not a lot of space to move around in her room.
in those days and week, Hannah had gone through a few high-risk procedures to improve her chances. the short term goal worked.
I think it was the second Tuesday Hannah was there when Mom sat down with me and Amanda and told us the reality of the situation. we still had hope, though. Amanda was hoping to show Hannah all of the visitor badges she had accumulated, and I had put up something on Hannah's wall in her room so she could see it when she got home...
the next few days, Hannah rallied. things were looking up. the doctors said her infection was gone. Hannah was taken off of the ECMO machine, the crash cart was removed from her room, she had gone down to a few less IV's. I did my best to be hopeful, but I knew.
the third Tuesday. three weeks.
her infection had never left. the concern was her right leg. they were going to amputate to see if that would improve anything. but they didn't even get to that point. she was even supposed to be switched to a different type of machine to help her breathe. they didn't get to that, either.
Hannah's pacemaker was the only thing keeping her alive, at 59 BPM. the ventilator was also doing all of her breathing.
as a family, we had to make a decision. if she were to survive, she would have even more complications, an amputated leg, she'd be behind on schoolwork, not to mention possible brain damage...and she had already made the decision on her own. Hannah had fought, she had fought so hard. she was just so sick and so tired, she was ready. she was ready to go to Heaven...
Mom had made peace earlier in the week, and Dad had made peace earlier that day (ironically)...
the nurses made sure Hannah was comfortable, turned off all of the alarms, and then her pacemaker and ventilation were turned off..
our last moments with Hannah were spent as a family. the five of us. we were holding her arms, her hands..moving her hair out of her face. in silence.
3:45, January 26, 2016.
I cried so much that day that I had a headache from it.
I was not prepared.
I literally watched my sister die.
Her memorial was Saturday the 30. me and my family made displays of pictures of her, her black belt, all of the things she received while in the hospital..and lots of people sent flowers. lots of flowers. pink ones. she would have loved it. me, Amanda, Dad, and Mom all had some form of "speech" that we wanted to say at her memorial. naturally, we all cried doing so. it was good to get the words out, though.
we had Hannah cremated, since her body was in such a bad shape. me and Amanda will eventually be getting a necklace with her fingerprint on it. Mom and Dad were already wearing some of her necklaces before she passed, and they will continue to do so.
Hannah...was one of a kind. She got red hair from Dad's side of the family, a long way back. She had Mom's nose. She had that signature teen eye roll. She could eat me and Amanda under the table sometimes, I swear she had a wooden leg. She was tall for her age, but petite. She had Dad's beautiful green eyes. Going to Paris was the first thing on her bucket list. She really liked mint chocolate chip ice cream, she could have probably eaten a carton by herself in one sitting. She had just become a fan of Mountain Dew. She liked to drink tap water lukewarm instead of cold. She was good competition in Mario Kart and Mario Party. I didn't mind taking her to Tae Kwon Do. I had helped her with her laptop problems. She was halfway to a driver's license. She had some sass, but was very kindhearted. She had a smile that could light up the room and a laugh to match.
yes, Hannah is in Heaven, which is a much better place than Earth.
it's just...death is so...final. like, that's it. there's nothing else. ever again.
sometimes it hits me, other times I'm numb. it's the small things, those are what get me. I cried while out at dinner with Zak. I had a Twix bar at work and almost broke down. certain songs on the radio. the letter H. sometimes I still catch myself thinking "oh, when will Hannah wake up for school?" and that makes me reaaaaaally sad.
I'm going to miss her. Well, I've been missing her.
I cried when typing all of this, ergh
[mad props if you read all this. hugs to you]
EDIT 7/2/16
Since I'm keeping this journal up (for anyone to read her story) I thought I would add some pictures. Not to make anyone sad, but to share a little bit more of Hannah
When she was younger. ^_^ (Not sure of her age here, under 5 at least?)
This was for our parents' vow renewal last year. She was very pretty in her hot pink dress. So full of sass, as per usual. c:
This was her freshman ID picture.
This is the tattoo I got for her. They are forget-me-nots. One of them is pink because it was Hannah's favorite color.
