feeling disconnected

I received an e-mail from my sister this morning and after reading it,I just feel disconnected somehow.
Here is the e-mail which describes my brother's condition at present.

HI Marge,
Just got time for a quick note, I’m already late leaving for work.
Walt is about as critical as you imagined. There are at least 9 IV medications going, all on monitors, He has a continuous EEG checking his brain waves, they are sedating him and want to make sure he doesn’t get too sedated. He has chest tubes draining his chest. ,there is a tube down his throat draining his stomach. He is on a ventilator. There is a bandage covering his chest, but you can see the heart moving under it. It’s weird cause it is really loud, usually you can’t hear a heart beating.
He has a nurse sitting at the foot of his bed watching him constantly. I asked the nurse about the bleeding, she said it wasn’t unusual after they have been on the artificial heart, they have to administer blood thinners and it takes the body a while to recover it’s clotting ability. He had 22 units in surgery and 10 post op.

Yesterday before we left we visited for a couple of minutes. He was a little less sedated, and he was moving his hands and feet a little bit, but never opened his eyes. He is having trouble maintaining his blood pressure, it was 84/42 while we were there, and that was with medicine to keep it up. They are trying to wean the medicine because it is limiting his circulation to his feet, so his feet are mottled purple.

Julie and Ken are real troopers, Julie has been home only about 10 days in the last 3 months. She challenges the doctors when she doesn’t agree with something. Ken said one time they were wheeling him to surgery and she said, I think he has a fever, and the nurse said No he was fine. Julie said Humor me, check his temperature again, and it was 102.8. So they cancelled the surgery that day.

The heart they gave him was a 30 year old, but that is all they would say. The doctor that is overseeing his care, told Ken, “we were really particular that it be a young and fit heart, b/c we knew it was going to really have to work hard to keep your Dad alive”. His heart rate has been in the 120’s for days.

We had a nice visit on Saturday nite, went out to dinner and they back to the hotel lobby where Ken set up a Wii game and we played for 3 hours. It was really nice to reconnect with both of them.

Well , got to go, Keep praying. Walt goes to surgery today to close his chest.

In years past when someone in the family was critically ill, mainly my Mom and Dad we siblings would rally around the one who was ill and support each other.
Situations are such most of us can't do this for Walt.
Some days I wonder if it would make a difference in his recovery if we could do that. Maybe not,buy you wonder.
If he could hear our voices, feel our touch, listen to our memories would it help make him well?

I feel so bad for my neice and nephew to shoulder the burden alone,although they would never see it or call it a burden.I guess what I mean by burden is the extreme weight of carrying the load just between the two of them;the decisions that have to be made,the time spent away from home.

I feel so helpless on the other side of the country and can do nothing physically to help.

I am feeling disconnected from my siblings.There is one I haven't been able to find and another that I leave messages with who doesn't answer calls.

My oldest sister relays the messages to our youngest brother who relays them to the oldest brother.

I e-mail all those I can. I guess I'm missing the physical connection we all had spending time with each other at the hospital in times of crisis.

No one had to explain a history;we all knew the history.These people were the witness of my life spent up to that point and I was to theirs.

This is the first sibling we've had to deal with such a serious illness and the possibility of losing.I don't think any of us are ready to lose our brother.I know I'm not.

I am optimistic of Walt's recovery.I have to be.However, what a process this for all of us to learn patience and faith in the waiting.It is surely a lesson in learning that all things happen in God's time and His isn't Eastern,Central,Mountain or Pacific.

I feel like I am in a fog today. Like I'm going through the motions but not really involved,therefore disconnected.

It's as if I am anticipating something but don't know what the something is yet.

All I can really do is pray and pray I have, earnestly.And almost everyone who knows me is praying with us.

Jesus said, "wherever two or more are gathered in my name there I shall be".I picture all of us praying for Walt crowded in his room and we feel the power of the Holy Spirit working and filling us with his love and promise.

I guess these are my thoughts today as we await another report later today.

Thoughts of my brother

Some may know my brother Walt has been very sick and fighting a battle with heart disease.
He was diagnosed many years ago, maybe 20, with cardiomyopathy. This is the same thing my Mother contracted and died from, my oldest brother has it and Walt's son has been diagnosed with it.

Walt became very ill last December and was admitted to Christ Hospital in Cincinnati several times. Eventually the doctors there could do no more for him and arrangements were made for him to go to the Cleveland Clinic to await a heart transplant. This was last July.

Walt has had a rough row to hoe since he's been there.
Early on he was to be transplanted but as it turned out the donor heart was a good match but an unhealthy heart.
He was having lots of ups and downs, sometimes more downs than ups.
Eventually, his heart was sick enough and no donor heart available so they removed all but a small section of his diseased heart to hook him up to a mechanical heart, which we call his artificial heart.
One of the side effects of the mechanical heart is serious infection which he developed.

After the mechanical heart, which by the way is a huge machine almost 5 ft tall that would sit at the foot of his bed and wires and tubes connected inside his chest, he lost over 100 lbs of fluid that had built up inside his body from the heart not functioning.

Soon after that he was able to get on a treadmill and begin a limited exercise program to rebuild his strength. I would call him and it was astounding the change in his voice.
At first he was so weak he sounded like a 90 yr old man barely able to talk.
By late last week he was just about his old self again.

Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, he was transplanted with a donor heart. We assume the donor was a male between the ages of 30-35 because that's what we were told would be what the surgeons and transplant team felt would be best for him.

Almost immediately after transplantation he developed serious complications. He was bleeding profusely and required 20 litres of blood that day. When they opened him up they discovered the infection was much worse than they expected to find. He developed a high fever and his white blood count was very high.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, he became more ill. He became extremely septic and they put him on dialysis, risking his kidneys to save his life.They were giving him megadoses of every antibiotic they could which could blow out his kidneys.
We were told to prepare for the worst.

It was a somber Thanksgiving for all the Mitchell's. His son and daughter were at the hospital alone waiting for news of their Dad instead of home having a happy celebration with their families.
I tried to focus on what there was to be thankful for and there were many things I thought of.

I live a good life;I live in a free country and because of that enjoy freedoms others don't have;I have healthy children and grandchildren; although I may not be as healthy as I could be my ailments are not life threatening;I have access to good medical care and medicine;I have a really great guy in my life who treats me like a queen;I have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood,with many terrific neighbors who have become friends;I get to volunteer at a place that is spectacularly beautiful and have great people that I volunteer with;I get to go back in time to history of the 1850's and recreate events for the folks who visit and especially the children. I have been able to travel;I have had some utterly sad things happen to me however I've learned great lessons so I value these as well. I have an internet community of friends that couldn't be closer even though most of us have never met and never will.They even included my brother and our family in their Thanksgiving blessings.
These are the things I focused on during my Thanksgiving day.

I've thought about my brother a lot of course in the recent months.I guess when you are threatened with losing someone from your life you tend to do that.otherwise,we tend to just take people for granted and think they'll always be there and we'll get to them tomorrow. It's when we get close too running out of tomorrows that realize how precious someone else's life is to our own.

My earliest memories of my brother are of sharing time with our dog,Lady who was an apricot colored cocker spaniel.
She was such a good dog, my best friend at that time.
There used to be a picture of Pat(my oldest sister), Walt, myself and Lady on the front porch of our childhood home.I'm guessing I was not quite 2, so Walt would have been maybe 7. It must have been in the fall because we were bundled up in heavy jackets and had headscarves and hats on. There was no snow on the ground and I don't recall we were wearing mittens or gloves.

Other memories of Walt that aren't so good was when he was drowning turtles my sisters and I had found downstairs in the stationary tub in the basement. He would kill snails with salt or a magnifying glass in the summer,he would fight with me every chance he had.Physically fight.
One time, I guess I must have been maybe 13,on a Saturday morning I changed the TV channel to something we younger kids were used to watching.Walt was usually working on Saturday mornings and I don't remember why he was home that day.Maybe he was sick.
He became so angry with me for changing the channel he got up and started choking me. Honest to God, bona fide strangling me.
My Mom came in the room and was yelling at him to stop, hitting his arms and he kept up. I was turning blue and losing consciousness and finally he quit.

He would skip school at the Polumbo Apartments where his girlfriend Janet (who later became his wife) lived at the time. He would make fun of me for going to school.
Later when I was skipping and got caught and my Dad was ashamed of me "because no one in our family EVER skipped school" I kept my mouth shut about Walt.To my Dad's dying day I don't think he ever knew.

Walt did some other unkind things to me that were abusive but I don't want to discuss them.
As teens we didn't have a very nice or happy existence.
I recall as if it was yesterday the morning he was leaving for Ft. Benning,GA when he was drafted.
This was during the Vietnam era and I realized my brother could be killed at war.
Real life came into clear focus that morning. I didn't hate my brother,I hated the things he did.
We sat at the bottom of the steps in the hallway and talked for awhile.
We both forgave each other perceived wrongs and made a truce that has lasted to this day.
That was in August,1968.

He came home on leave in December,1968 to get married to Janet and I was in the wedding. he left January 2nd for Germany. Janet joined him in February and they lived there when Ken was born the next February and she came home when Ken was few months old and Walt came home shortly after.
I was married the following October, Halloween night to be exact and my then husband and myself and Walt and Janet became best friends.
We lived within a few blocks of each other and within a few blocks of our parents,and my oldest sister.
Being around family was an everyday occurrence.
Actually, Janet and I were friends since I was 13 yrs old until she passed away a few years ago.

I admit I wasn't in contact as much with my brother those next years as I should have been. I did call a few times but few and far between.
I lived far away and like other things in life,one day turns into the next,one week turns into the next and then it's months and years. You always think there is going to be tomorrows.

My brother is the type that everyone considers friendly. Once you've met him you don't forget him.
I can't tell you the times we'd be out together and he would run into someone he knew in the service, someone he knew in school, someone he knew through a job.

For a few years he had a beer route out in the suburbs where we all eventually moved when we bought homes.
He was much loved and well thought of on his beer route. he serviced his customers as he would have wanted to be serviced had the shoe been on the other foot.
He was more than conscience. I wish I knew how many Sundays I saw him in stores on his route checking his displays, going to the back room to add to the displays when the product was dwindling.
I don't think I've ever heard someone talk trash about him his whole adult life.

I've been told by Ken even his coworkers from Kroger's warehouse and bottling plant where he eventually worked after the beer route have sent him cards and good wishes. They call and check up on him and he hasn't worked there in more than a year.

I would know anywhere my brother's voice;he has always as long as I can remember had this tic of clearing his throat while he talks.
Another memory I have of him when we were real little,I guess maybe he was 6-7 yrs old so I would have been 2-3. For some reason he needed to spell the word Carlotta.There was a family across with that name.
For whatever reason he got on the phone and called the operator. I can still hear it.
"I am just a little boy and I don't know how to spell Carlotta". That became a family joke for years and years and years. He hated it but we loved it.

In high school somehow someone gave him the nickname "Moose". I don't recall how it got started but he hated that too. Of course, knowing he hated it I called him that every chance I could. Sisters are like that.

One of the most special memories I have of my brother and my sister-in-law was when I was going through the first divorce. My soon to be ex had kidnapped my kids from me and was suing for custody. To say I was despondent would be an understatement.
At this point Janet concocted this idea for me.Walt and her to go kidnap my kids back.
We thought out the plan. Walt was off because it had snowed and iced that morning. they had an old station wagon.
So off we went to the exes house and I knew he had the lady next door watching my kids. She was supposed to be a friend of mine but I guess she liked being his mistress more.
I knew we had no more than 10 minutes to get the kids and any stuff out of the exes house before he would have been called at work and gotten home.
While I was inside Diane's house grabbing my kids, threatening to kill her if she tried to stop me, Walt and Janet were scurrying through my old house gathering items I had written down for the kids and placing them in the back of their car.
At just the right moment we jumped back into the car and headed to my apartment and got inside and locked the door.
Sure enough, pound,pound, pound on the door. The soon to be ex was fuming. I had outsmarted him and he didn't think I had it in me.
Possession was 9/10ths of the law for the custody case. I had possession.
I will be forever grateful to my brother and sister-in-law for helping me that day.
After Big Dan left we hurried out to the car and got all the stuff inside and then they went home. Me and my kids were safe.

So many memories of being together. They'd come to my house,we go to theirs.
We watched the kids grow up. We joined forces to help my Dad when he was sick.
So many memories.

I pray today that Walt is allowed to get better and go home and reunite with his family and friends and we are able to make new memories.
He and I have already talked about him visiting me here in California. he and his Yorkie, Mitch.
Maybe other family members will visit with him too.
We still have lots of living to do.I'm not ready for my brother to be gone from my life but will accept it if the Good Lord decides to take him Home.
He will be missed. he will be mourned.
And he would be embarrassed that he was.
He wouldn't want to believe he had that effect on so many people.

If anyone reading this believes in miracles and the power of prayer,please believe in a miracle and pray for my brother and his family.
We want him home for Christmas and we believe with god, all things ARE possible.

For four months now my brother hasn't eaten at a table, showered or gone to the bathroom by himself in private, smelled fresh air, felt the sunshine, heard raindrops,pet his dog, worn street clothes. His view has been of a new building being contrustected next to the building he's in.

I believe he should be healthy and go home and poop scoop drop droppings, shovel snow,rake leaves, clean his refrigerator and toilet, pay the sky high prices for gas. he should be able to complain about the high cost of food, the high price of heating his home.
He should be able to cheer on his grandson at a football game, be made to have tea parties with his granddaughter.
He should have to endure long phone conversations with me.
He should have to mow his lawn next spring and water his flowers.
In other words he should have a normal life like everyone else.

I pray our heavenly Father sees it this way too. If not, I know Janet and my Mom and Dad will be waiting for him as he crosses over and that is the way it will have to be. I will have to be thankful for no more suffering and that he has peace.

I love you Walt and am selfish that I want you around for another 20 years.