Catching Up on Me!

You may have noticed that I’ve sort of been on sabbatical the past little while.

I posted on Monday about the reason behind it (in part).

But let’s move past the drama and leave that in the workplace. Let’s talk about what has been going on since the last time we really spoke.

FITBIT/WALK: I’ve continued on my path of making sure I get my 10,000 steps in by using my FitBit. I absolutely love being able to track my activity. I’ve done as much as about 18k in a day and most days I make it to 10k. Because of physical limitations I’ve been not on my feet so much this week, but I should be back to normal soon.

My niece Mika also got a FitBit so we can push each other. She was doing really well for a bit but has slowed down (but she is 13, so, you know – a teenager) but I’m trying  to push her. She was beating me and I need the inspiration!  If you still aren’t my friend on there – I’d love to be FitBit Pals!

ANNIVERSARY: On April 26^th my husband and I celebrated our 1 Year Anniversary. We were able to take a day off and go on a short weekend getaway up the California Coast. If you follow me on Facebook you will have seen a ton of pictures. We went to Hearst Castle and lingered on the coast. We had both been before, but not for over 10-15 years. It’s a gorgeous place and the history is incredible. If you ever get the change I recommend it (even though it is a little pricey - $25 per tour and I think there are 2 or 3 in total). We also went to Morro Bay the next day and had a great time.  

I’ll write a post just on this because the weekend deserves its own attention.

MOTHER’s DAY: Thomas and I celebrated Mother’s Day the night before by taking our mommy’s to dinner at Flemmings. It was an interesting night. My mom doesn’t speak English and his doesn’t speak Spanish. My mom was not happy with the food – her meat with undercooked (she likes it well done). We complained and they took it back but when they brought it out again it was still red inside. One of the managers asked her how it was and when she said it was still red he said that if they cooked it more it would be burned. Umm. No. That’s only if you don’t know how to cook a steak well done.  We were able to talk to someone else, who spoke Spanish, who was able to remove the steak from her bill and give her a free dessert. Score for our bank account!

VOTE!: On May 19^th we had a small local election for school board. I have voted in every single election since I turned 18 and am happy to continue with that. Unfortunately the candidate I wanted didn’t win – but it’s the fact that I voted that counts.

May 21^st: On May 21^st it was a year since my sister passed away. I left work early and went to the cemetery with my parents and Jonathan (who was at their house at the time). It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to know that my sister is somewhere that is beautiful and that has such a great view.

NAILS: For the first time since before my wedding I went to get a mani/pedi with my mom. I had stopped going to save money because $27 every month seemed like a bit much. However I WAS paying $75/mo for a housekeeper, but her last month was December – so that’s a lot of money I’ve saved on that… and I’ve been doing it instead which means… I deserve this! It was nice to be pampered again. I decided on the pedicure at the last minute and that ended up being a good decision.

PICNIC: My niece has been planning Memorial Day picnic’s for the past 5 years (except last year since I was in Argentina on my Honeymoon at the time). This year we had it at a nice park in which she held it the first year as well.  And apparently I don’t learn my lessons. The first time we had it there in 2012 I was walking barefoot on the grass (what I always did when I was little) and stepped on a freaking bee. It stung me on my toe of my left foot. It got swollen and I got a nice little picture of it. Guess what happened this year!? Once again I stepped on a bee as I walked back from the ice cream truck (same thing as last time). This time it was smack in the middle of my right foot. The first day I was fine but the itching woke me up in the middle of the night. By Tuesday morning I could barely walk.  Luckily I brought back Caladryl from Argentina last year and that has helped, but again on Tuesday night I woke up twice with incredible itchiness! The area got more swollen and red through Wednesday but finally overnight into Thursday it finally started to get better.

I was walking on the side of my foot which now has left that painful. *sigh*

This is the reason why my steps have not been up to 10k this week.

So that is me for the past month or two! 

Facebook is Cruel and Crass

As most of you have probably seen on Facebook over the past couple of weeks – people have been posting a “year in review” collection of photos that Facebook itself put together and allowed each person to share or not on their page.

When I looked at mine and my mom’s… it wasn’t very interesting. Pictures of my wedding, my honeymoon, and the like.

Then, on Saturday, my brother calls me up. He asked if I had seen his post. I scrolled through my phone and found what he was referring to. He did a screen capture of what the year in review front page picture was for him.

I couldn’t believe it.

That is the last picture taken of my sister, only a couple of hours before she died. My dad by her side, saying his last goodbyes.

It was a crass thing to do. Even worse is that the day before they posted this to my brothers’ page, they apologized for doing similar things to others, including the father of a 6 year old who died earlier this year. If you apologize and realize something is wrong, why do you keep doing it?

My eldest sister, Margarita, did an amazing job at putting her feelings together. She wrote an amazing piece. I love reading her writing – she is simply amazing at it. I also love it because she shares memories that I don’t have. Memories of a time before me. You see, my sisters, and brother are over a decade older than me and lived a whole other life in Argentina.

It’s long, but it’s beautiful. It might not mean much to you, but it does for me. So much. If you read it, I truly do appreciate it. If you don’t, I understand.

Facebook Posts Photo of My Sister on her Deathbed – And Forces Me to Grieve

December 29, 2014 at 1:14 pm (Bad Companies, Memories, My World, Opinions)
Tags: Gabriela, Gladys, granny, La Plata

Last Friday, Facebook apologized to a grieving father for posting a “Year in Review” on his feed that featured his dead daughter.

Facebook’s “Year on Review” on my brother’s feed.

On Saturday, they posted this photo on my brother’s feed:

It’s a photo of our sister, Gabriela, agonizing on her death bed. She died later that day.

Gabriela got sick when she was 9 months old.  She got síndrome urémico hemolítico (hemolytic-uremic syndrome- HUS). I was almost four when this happened and I don’t remember ever not knowing those words. I didn’t know their meaning, of course, because at the time nobody did.  A syndrome, I was told, is a set of symptoms that go together without a known cause.  Now we know that HUS is most often caused by e-coli or another bacterial infection.  Not that it mattered, what mattered was that Gabriela got sick.

Ironically enough, I have rather good memories of the three months I spent living with aunt Gladys andGranny while Gabriela was at the hospital.  My aunt and grandmother doted on me, and I enjoyed the visits to the hospital.  The old, immense Hospital de Niños building was located in front of the Parque Saavedra, a huge park with a lake and plenty of green space.  Later, in fifth grade, I would come back here with my class to do a “study” of its ecosystem.  After every visit my aunt would buy me an ice cream bar.  Back then children were mostly put in large wards.  It was probably for that reason that, upon noticing that Gabriela was sick, my parents had taken her to the private Clínica del Niño.  The doctors there didn’t know what to do with her.  I’ve heard the story thousands of times: they kept filling her with serum while she couldn’t urinate until my father, worried, picked her up and took her against medical advice and without having her discharged, absconding with her to the public Hospital de Niños, where they saved her life.  HUS, you see, is a disease of poor children, the Clínica doctors hadn’t seen it before.  It was rare and worrisome enough, however, that my mother and Gabriela got the only single private room in the hospital.  Some years later, it’d be occupied by my cousin Fernando. Those memories are not in the least bittersweet.

I still remember, as well, the names of the doctors who saved her life back then and kept her alive afterwards: Silver and Rentería.  Their names would be replaced by others a few years later.   While Gabriela survived HUS, her kidneys were permanently damaged. By the age of six, they were giving out on her.

The three of us celebrating a doll’s birthday, c. 1978?

The CEMIC.  The Center for Medical Education and Clinical Investigations in the posh Palermo Chico neighborhood of Buenos Aires.  It became Gabriela’s home-away-from-home from the moment my parents found out about the possibility of a kidney transplant.  There were so many tests; my father had a different blood type; my brother and I were too young; my mother’s kidney was not fully compatible.  A German drug could work, perhaps, to bring down her immune system and prevent it from rejecting the kidney.  Working with the insurance companies to get them to import it and pay for it.  Getting Gabriela to gain weight so she could withstand the operation; getting my mother to lose weight to make it easier to take out her kidney.  My vacaciones the invierno, winter break, that year were spent in a nice apartment close to the calle Florida, in Buenos Aires.  It was owned by tío Héctor, one of my father’s college friends.  Mamá and Gabriela were in the hospital, papá working and visiting them, I was pretty much on my own.   I strolled the calle Florida, browsed at the toy stores and Harrods, ate the delicious pear jam that tío Héctor’s cousin was working to distribute. I visited Gabriela at the hospital some times.  She was in an isolation room, all by herself.  To enter, you had to cover your clothing, your head, your face and even your shoes.  You had to wash your hands with disinfectant and then put on gloves.  After her death, I discovered a letter I wrote to her while she was in the hospital, telling her about some little dolls I’d bought, advising her to be good to the doctors and nurses.

We celebrated Gabriela’s first transplant with an asado for doctors, patients and family members. 1979.

The rest, well, the rest is history. She got the transplant, a year later she started to reject it, two years later we had come to the US in search of a second kidney.  It would take a year, two at the most, and we’d be back home.  That’s what we thought.  Instead, it was six, and I was a sophomore in college by the time it came.  Before and after, well, there were health problems after health problems.  My freshman year in college I wrote a poem about her death, I don’t even remember what particular health crisis she was growing through then.  Peritonitis, convulsions, infections, my mom actually kept count of the hospitalizations, she’ll probably comment and say how many they were.  My mom was with her on every single one.  Every medical crisis presaged her death, but she didn’t die.  Then she lost her second transplanted kidney, around the time I was having my second child; she refused to go back on hemodialysis so we waited for her to die.  At the last minute, when the toxins in her brain were giving her painful hallucinations she consented to be treated, and there she went on until she had her third transplant, this time from a girl she met on the internet.  The Wall Street Journal even wrote about that(years later, my husband would also be featured on a WSJ front page story, on a completely different topic).

Throughout my life I have made my peace with Gabriela’s death so many times that when it finally happened, it came as an enormous surprise.   Truth be told, I believed she would outlive us all.  She gave proof to the adage that death comes like a thief in the night, when you least expect it.

My relationship with Gabriela had deteriorated over the years.  I loved her, I hope she knew that, but we clashed too much.  I won’t speak ill of the dead because it serves no purpose, so let’s just say we did not get along.   In part I was happy to say my last words to her after she died so she couldn’t talk back.  But I think she knew what I would tell her: that I always loved her with all my heart, that I had given her as much of me as I could give her and still remain a person, that I lived every day with the guilty of the unfairness and senselessness that she had been sick and I hadn’t been, that she didn’t get to live a full life, and I did.  As she laid dead, I spoke those words for myself, of course, but I also spoke them for her.

My family back in 1980, Gabriela is at the front.

But don’t get me wrong, while Gabriela and I were not close anymore, it’s in relative terms.  There is a closeness in my family which I think is very unlike  what I see in others, for better or worse.  When we were young and my brother and I would express jealousy about how much more attention my parents paid to Gabriela than to us, my mom would say that her children were like her fingers.  When one was injured, that’s the one she paid attention to, but the others were just as important and loved.  I think that the five + 1 of us (Kathy, my younger sister, was born two years before I left for college) are like fingers.  Too much part of a one to be individuals by ourselves.  I don’t think I can grieve for Gabriela without grieving for myself, for my brother or for my parents.

And thus we go back to Facebook’s ill-timed photo.   It didn’t appear on my feed, and for that I’m thankful, but it did appear on my brother’s. I understand why it did.  I come from a large family, with tons of aunts and uncles and cousins and second and third cousins.  Gabriela’s death was shared by everyone who lived her struggles.  They couldn’t be there in person, so they were virtually around her.  So they liked the photo, they commented on it, it was significant.  Which does not mean that seeing it again was welcomed.

My biggest issue was not that this photo was posted by facebook on my brother’s feed, he can deal with his own traumas, but that it was posted adorned with bright colored circles and squiggles that look balloons and garlands.  It’s a design that celebrates, that shows joy… at my sister’s agony and death.  How incredibly crass is that? How cruel?

It’s bad enough that they did it, but it’s worse that they did it with full knowledge of the pain this could cause.  After all, just like Friday they apologized for doing pretty much the same thing.  When you apologize for doing something wrong, you are supposed to change your behavior, not do it again and this time with happier designs!

Some good has come of this, for me.  I had been avoiding thinking about Gabriela this whole Xmas season, I didn’t want to break down and cry and I

have now done so, repeatedly, as I composed this post.  I didn’t want to think about the fact that next year, when my whole family comes to my house for Christmas, she won’t be with them, I didn’t want to think about how there is a finger missing from that hand now and it will never be reattached, but I know I did both of us a disservice by avoiding thinking about her.  I’m glad this forced me to and I can say Merry Christmas to the memory of that little girl that Gabriela was once upon a time.

Feliz Navidad, Gabriela!

I Also Grieve

Like most others out there I am feeling sad for the loss we all experienced on Monday. I even feel a sort of guilt that he gave us so much joy while he was suffering so deeply inside. I hope that the joy he gave us was some sort of solace for him during his life. 

I know there are many controversies over whether his suicide is selfish or not. Even FOX News called him a coward on Monday. I'm with, I think, the majority in disagreeing with those type of statements. Rachel from With Love, Rachel did a great job talking about this in her post today. Yesterday, my sister, who has battled depression throughout her adult life posted a link that also talks about how suicide is not something that should be treated as selfish. Both people explain how depression is an illness like any other physical illness you need medical attention for. Unless you've experienced that illness for yourself it is hard to understand what the person is going through. I suggest you read both links. 

I was in the lunch room at work when a co-worker asked me if I had heard about it. At first I hoped he was joking and that it was a hoax like the many you see online. Unfortunately we saw that it was not. 

The first thing that came to mind was a poem that my mom had memorized and recited to me often (mostly because I requested her to). The poem is in Spanish, written by Mexican Author Juan de Dios Peza. 

I'll copy it here in Spanish and the English translation that my sister created a while back. I suggest you read it, it fits perfectly with Robin and his life and ultimate death.

REÍR LLORANDO

Viendo a Garrick -actor de la Inglaterra-

el pueblo al aplaudirlo le decía:

“Eres el más gracioso de la tierra,

y más feliz…” y el cómico reía.

Víctimas del spleen, los altos lores

en sus noches más negras y pesadas,

iban a ver al rey de los actores,

y cambiaban su spleen en carcajadas.

Una vez, ante un médico famoso,

llegóse un hombre de mirar sombrío:

sufro -le dijo-, un mal tan espantoso

como esta palidez del rostro mío.

Nada me causa encanto ni atractivo;

no me importan mi nombre ni mi suerte;

en un eterno spleen muriendo vivo,

y es mi única pasión la de la muerte.

-Viajad y os distraeréis. -¡Tanto he viajado!

-Las lecturas buscad. -¡Tanto he leído!

-Que os ame una mujer. -¡Si soy amado!

-Un título adquirid. -¡Noble he nacido!

-¿Pobre seréis quizá? -Tengo riquezas.

-¿De lisonjas gustáis? -¡Tantas escucho!

-¿Qué tenéis de familia? -Mis tristezas.

-¿Vais a los cementerios? -Mucho… mucho.

-De vuestra vida actual ¿tenéis testigos?

-Sí, mas no dejo que me impongan yugos:

yo les llamo a los muertos mis amigos;

y les llamo a los vivos, mis verdugos.

Me deja -agrega el médico- perplejo

vuestro mal, y no debe acobardaros;

tomad hoy por receta este consejo

“Sólo viendo a Garrick podréis curaros”.

-¿A Garrik? -Sí, a Garrick… La más remisa

y austera sociedad le busca ansiosa;

todo aquel que lo ve muere de risa;

¡Tiene una gracia artística asombrosa!

-¿Y a mí me hará reír? -¡Ah! sí, os lo juro;

Él sí; nada más él; más… ¿qué os inquieta?

-Así -dijo el enfermo-, no me curo:

¡Yo soy Garrick!… Cambiadme la receta.

¡Cuántos hay que, cansados de la vida,

enfermos de pesar, muertos de tedio,

hacen reír como el actor suicida,

sin encontrar para su mal remedio!

¡Ay! ¡Cuántas veces al reír se llora!

¡Nadie en lo alegre de la risa fíe,

porque en los seres que el dolor devora

el alma llora cuando el rostro ríe!

Si se muere la fe, si huye la calma,

si sólo abrojos nuestra planta pisa,

lanza a la faz la tempestad del alma

un relámpago triste: la sonrisa.

El carnaval del mundo engaña tanto,

que las vidas son breves mascaradas;

aquí aprendemos a reír con llanto,

y también a llorar con carcajadas.

To Laugh While Crying

Watching Garrik – an actor from England -

the people would say applauding:

“You are the funniest one on earth

and the happiest one…”

And the comedian would laugh.

Victims of melancholy, the highest lords,

during their darkest and heaviest nights

would go see the king of actors

and change their melancholy into roars of laughter.

Once, before a famous doctor,

came a man with eyes so somber:

“I suffer – he said -, an illness so horrible

as this paleness of my face”

“Nothing holds any enchantment or attractiveness;

I don’t care about my name or my fate

I die living an eternal melancholy

and my only hope is that of death”.

- Travel and distract yourself

- I’ve traveled so much!

- Search for readings

- I’ve read so much!

- Have a woman love you

- But I am loved

- Get a title

- I was born a noble

- Might you be poor?

- I have richnesses

- Do you like compliments?

- I hear so many!

- What do you have as a family?

- My sadness

- Do you go to the cemeteries?

- Often, very often.

- Of your current life, do you have witnesses?

- Yes, but I don’t let them impose their burdens;

I call the dead my friends;

I call the living my executioners.

- It leaves me – added the doctor – perplexed

your illness and I must not scare you;

Take today this advise as a prescription

only watching Garrik you can be cured.

-Garrik?

-Yes, Garrik… The most indolent

and austere society anxiously seeks him;

everyone who sees him, dies of laughter;

he has an amazing artistic grace.

- And me? Will he make me laugh?

-Ah, yes, I swear it;

he and no one but him; but… what disturbs you?

-So  – said the patient – I won’t be cured;

I am Garrik! Change my prescription.

How many are there who, tired of life,

ill with pain, dead with tedium,

make others laugh as the suicidal actor,

without finding a remedy for their illness!

Ay! How often we laugh when we cry!

Nobody trust the merriment of laughter,

because in those beings devoured by pain,

the soul groans when the face laughs!

If faith dies, if calm flees,

if our feet only step on thistles,

the tempest of the soul hurls to the face,

a sad lighting: a smile.

The carnival of the world is such a trickster,

that life is but a short masquerade;

here we learn to laugh with tears

and also to cry with laughter.

Dash for Organ Donation

Some of you know that my sister, Gabriela, passed away on May 21^st of this year. After 3 kidney transplants and periods of years on dialysis since she was just 9 months, old she passed away due to intestinal blockages. 

My sisters’ first transplant was a kidney from my mom and her second was from a man who died in a motorcycle accident. The last, in 2007, was from a selfless, caring, amazing person who decided that she wanted to help save someone’s life by giving part of herself. 

Katie Welch, in her mid-twenties at the time, and my sister came into communication and Katie told my sister she would be willing to donate one of her kidneys to my sister out of the kindness of her heart. The word for this is altruistic. Not many people that I’ve encountered over the years know this word because there aren’t many people out there who truly are to the extent that Katie is. 

The kidney that Katie donated was strong and gave my sister 7 years of happiness. Seven years of extended life, of not having to go to dialysis three times a week. 

Now she is once again doing something so very kind. Katie will be participating in the Dash for Organ Donation in Alaska. She is raising money for Alaska Kidney Patients Association Inc.  on September 20^th. 

I know that we are all asked to donate money every time we turn around and that times are tough economically and we don’t all have much to spare. But if between now and the race in September you happen to have a few extra dollars ($1? $5? $10?) please consider donating it to Katie and the Alaska Kidney Patients. 

If you don’t personally know someone who is in need of an organ transplant you may not know the following facts:

• 18 people die daily while waiting for a transplant, 14 of which were waiting for a new kidney.
• 1 deceased organ donar can save up to 8 lives
• 122,737 (as of 5/21/14) men, women and children currently need organ transplants
• Of those 100,602 are waiting for a kidney transplant.
• Every 10 minutes a name is added to that list. 
• In 2014 there were 14,029 kidney transplants. 9,314 of those came from deceased donors and 4,715 came from living donors. 
• In 2014 there was only 1 unrelated anonymous donation (like my sisters’). 

Thank you for reading this. If you have a moment to share on your blog or tweet about this it would be incredible. 

It's not typical confessions... but I confess I would love for you to help! 

Wednesday Confessional

I’ve had a busy few weeks and I’ve definitely been out of the blog world as well. I had pre-written posts for while I was in Argentina for my honeymoon, but when I got back…  I had no interest in sitting down on the couch (or anywhere) to blog.

So I confess…

• I thought I would be inspired to blog while on my trip, but it was the last thing on my mind.

• However, I did read most of the entries on my Bloglovin’ feed. I did not want to come home to 1000+ posts to catch up on.

• I was upset with my family because of something that occurred regarding my sisters’ death. I’m not going to go into detail here, but it caused me pain.

• I cried quite a bit the night I found out my sister passed. I was able to pull myself together to go to dinner, but I was unable to stop tears from coming. People probably thought Thomas and I were fighting.

• Leaving Argentina was bitter sweet. I missed home, but I enjoyed being with my extended family very much. It feels like a second home, and not like I’m just a visitor.

• I am not looking forward to going through all our pictures, deciding which ones to print, and then putting them into albums. My brother is good at captioning pictures, but I’m not. I get bored easily with that kind of stuff. I have to do it – for both the honeymoon and the wedding.

• Part of the reason I don’t want to go through the pictures is that the wedding pictures are pretty bad and it makes me very sad.

• I confess that I feel bad taking things from my sisters’ room. My mom is emptying it out and she offered me one of her computers. I took her Mac. I still haven’t set it up… and I think that’s why.

I think that’s enough confessions for one week, right? Next week my Wednesday post SHOULD be about my wedding day!

Goodbye Gabriela

I've spoken much about my sister here over the past month or two. 

For anyone just coming to my blog, let me give a quick history. 

My sister had had 3 kidney transplants in her 42 years of life. She got sick as a baby (9 months) and her life has been a nearly constant struggle since then. Her body has gone through dozens of surgeries (transplants, organ removal, hip replacement, etc) and she had to take dozens of medications over the course of her life to keep herself alive. 

Unfortunately those same medical miracles that kept her alive for the past 4 decades also destroyed her. 

On March 28 she went into the hospital due to an obstructed bowel. She got to go home on her 42nd birthday on April 1st, but returned to the hospital on 7th. 

She has now left Cedars Sinai Medical Center, but unfortunately it wasn't to come home - at least not the physical home she shared with my parents (and myself until my recent marriage). 

My sister passed away on May 21st, 2014 at 7:10pm (PST). She had been sedated due to the trauma her body had been going through and the anxiety that being intubated caused. She did not know she was going to die. She thought this was just another surgery she had to overcome. 

She was a strong person and fought her entire life. When she was 9 months old the doctors told my parents she had 10 hours to live. Thanks to her will to live and my parents dedication to her she lived well beyond that.

I'm writing this from an airport in Argentina during my honeymoon. Before we left for Argentina (where my entire extended family lives) I went to the hospital for a meeting with the doctor's. There they told us what we already knew... she would die. The surgeon told us that there was nothing she could do anymore. 

After the meeting I went to my sister's room. Her eyes were open but she wasn't there. I spoke to her and I cried and I told her I loved her (even though we haven't gotten along in the past decade). She took care of me growing up (she is was 12 years older than me). I said my goodbye's knowing I would not likely see her again. Although I left the US knowing she would die, I was not expecting it to be so quick. 

Unfortunately, on Monday the 19th when the doctors went in to wash her abdomen they found that she had several hemorrhages and that her liver had given out (due to being fed via IV since she could not be fed directly to her stomach). They gave her a week to live. On Tuesday they gave her a few hours. Finally, on Wednesday, they removed her ventilator. She lived for an hour past that. 

She is done suffering and she lived far past the lifespan she was given as an infant. I am sad, my family is sad, and we are suffering. But I believe she is with us as all our relatives and loved ones are. 

Rest in peace, Gabriela. We love you.