Life is a constant war waged with
death. A pessimist would say that it is a fruitless endeavor, seeing as how
death is undefeatable. While this may be true, I am proud to say that I have
repelled death many a time. However, I consider myself an anomaly for I have
seen mighty warriors struck down. But this story is about the time I defeated
death and in order to fully appreciate my nemesis, you must first realize my
grudge I have toward it.
It all began in early 2001. My mother was pregnant with my soon-to-be brother named Vincent. I was so excited because my parents allowed me to be involved with all the appointments, seeing the sonograms. At the time, I was five years old so I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but I was glad to be a part of everything. Tragedy struck my family in May when Vincent was stillborn. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time, nor did I understand the changes at my house. My mom, who was a bright and happy person refused to speak to me. She would lay in bed and cry all day, every day, leaving me to fend for myself until my Dad came home. To this day, I have never been able to rekindle my relationship with my Mom, which is very hard to live with. However, there was a silver lining to all of this.
On July 26th, 2002, my sister was born. Shortly after her birth, we learned that she was born with Sickle Cell Anemia. The best explanation of how she came to have the trait was because of our Mediterranean heritage. My family is a mixture of Sicilian and Calabrese, and it turned out that both my parents possessed the trait for sickle cell. I could write about our life in and out of hospitals as well as the mental and emotional turmoil we all faced, but this is a story of how we destroyed it.
I had my first encounter with death in the early months of 2007 when my gallbladder became diseased. I was undiagnosed for several months, living with the most unbearable pain I have ever suffered physically. Day in and day out, my stomach felt as if it was being squeezed and contorted. Towards the end, I couldn’t eat, drink, and sometimes sleep due to the pain. My mom was convinced I was crazy, and refused to take me to the hospital, but rather Pediatrician, who told her I was crazy or flat out lying. I was even placed in outpatient psychiatry for a month because of how convinced my mom was that I was simply insane. My mother most likely believed this because I was suffering from depression. The year prior, I had lost my Dad’s Dad, Grandpa Gene. He was my best friend. He was a short, old Italian, and walked around like he was a Made Man. He wasn’t a mook, mind you, but he had that way about him. The way he carried himself, you’d think he was seven feet tall, not five feet. He was smart and funny but was also intimidating. He didn’t deserve the slow death he had. He had survived several heart attacks in his life and had a pacemaker, which malfunctioned and sent him into cardiac arrest. He survived, but was in pain. The saddest part was that he was going to make it. He underwent a surgery to replace his pacemaker, but he had consumed food prior to going under amnesia. He fell into a coma from which he would never wake up. Not only had I lost him, but my Dad became very angry and wouldn’t help console the grief we shared. Unlike my mom, thankfully, my dad and I have a strong relationship and I would consider him my closest friend, as he considered his father. This event prompted my mother to question my health. One Friday, however, she took me to hospital, out of anger and wanted to prove to me that I was wrong. After a sonogram, the doctor at the ER immediately admitted me. My Gallbladder had burst and I required emergency surgery or else I would die by Sunday. Less than 24 hours later, I underwent my surgery and spat in the face of death.
Later that year, my sister suffered Acute Chest Syndrome, where both her lungs collapsed and she had barely survived. She was in the ICU for several weeks, but survived it all. Unfortunately, there is always a life for a life. My great grandmother passed away shortly after my sister survived after fighting a long time with Kidney failure. It was another emotional time for my family, and many of our surviving members moved away from us. All that was left was my parents, grandparents, and my sister.
Depression was consuming my life and ignorant people believed I needed “help”. My mom decided to drug me on medications prescribed by our family doctor. These medications were intended to treat bipolar disorder, not depression. Because of this, I began to suffer brain deterioration. In fact, I can’t remember most of 2011. I was sent to two separate mental hospitals, but stayed for less than a week at both because they couldn’t find a psychological problem with me. The last place I was sent to dealt with drug abusers and the mentally insane, which is where the discovered that I was suffering from a chemical imbalance caused by the medication I was taking. After I was weaned off the medicine, a mere three days later, I came back feeling better than ever. The brain damage wasn’t permanent, although there were parts damaged that were irreparable. I function fine and still have a high IQ, which leads me to believe that I only forgot the trauma of those places. I was a fish out of water, surrounded by people who needed “help” versus my chemical imbalance. I consider this to be another near death experience because the brain deterioration was so severe that it was going to become fatal had I not been weaned off.
This leads me to the defeat of death. In 2013, my sister underwent a Bone Marrow Transplant. I had the honor of being her donor, turning out to be her savior. But it wasn’t an easy process. Both her and I suffered complications: I was too “dry” to get an IV prior to surgery, so I entered the Operating Room conscious. My sister suffered from Press, which is a form of a seizure that presents itself as a stroke. She suffered this after the BMT, the day after to be exact. She had undergone chemotherapy prior to and lost all of her hair, but she also lost her finger nails and had terrible blood clots. It was a terrible experience during the first hundred days, but now she is one hundred percent healthy. Funny enough, her DNA is identical to mine now. With my miniscule help, we defeated her disease that was killing her.
Death is maybe the enemy of all living things, but I consider it my nemesis. I am proud to say that I have defeated death several times and aided my sister in defeating death. Though some may say it’s a fruitless endeavor to try and defeat death, I beg to differ.
“I finally died, which started the whole world living. Oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me.”