Death is an adventure in itself

Well, this is going to be another morbid post.

It all started on Thursday. My clinical group just finished it's telemetry rotation and we were being guided around for a next rotation: PACU (Post-anesthesia Care Unit), Emergency Department, and ICU. I was really dreading going to the ICU. It was where my aunt died.

Here's a little history on that:

My auntie. She was the 'cool' relative, you know? All of my friends called her auntie, or TeeTee (what I had called her when I smaller and counldn't say auntie.) She was my godmother and best friend. In 1995 or 1996 ( I can't quite remember), my aunt moved in when my father had moved out. Auntie became the second parent in the house. She helped raise my sister and I and of course helped out my mother. (My aunt had previously lived with my uncle to help raise my little cousin whose mother wasn't in the picture - at least at that time anyway.) My aunt loved to go shopping with me, if it wasn't for her, I would probably be the biggest tomboy ever. Not that thats a bad thing, but I now have a deep appreciation for heels, mascara, animal print, and shiny things. She also taught me independence, which she was quite big on. She was a DIY freak too, I guess overall a pretty well rounded person. In 2004, my aunt had started with some flank pain. After some tests, it was showing some liver and spleen issues. The doctor scheduled her to have her spleen removed. Before the surgery my aunt made out her advanced directives and a makeshift will. I kept thinking that she was overreacting, that she was just getting her spleen removed. The day of her surgery, my grandmother was with her in the living room, my mother was at work, my sister at school, and I was getting ready to head to school myself. I almost flew out the door, when she goes "Hey! Aren't you going to say goodbye?" Of course I would have, but she was expecting a bigger goodbye than usual, because after she said that...she stated "I might not come back." I kind of just blew this off once again. That night after her surgery, I went to visit her when I had left work around 7:30. My aunt was in the ICU, bed 10. While the surgery was being perform, it was noted that she had advanced cirrhosis of the liver (and no, she wasn't an alcoholic). After my aunt was stabilized she was sent up to the general med-surg floors. I mostly remember this, because this is one of the last places I saw her. I remember how she had such a hard time breathing and the significant ascites, and how often she hit that morphine button. For 3 days my aunt remained on the med-surg floor until she was sent back down to ICU after her condition faltered. During her second ICU stay my mother went in to visit her, and was taken aback by the sight of the ICU staff performing CPR on my aunt. Between 12 and 1 am on Saturday morning, I flew out of my bed straight to my mothers room when I heard the phone ring. I still remember that insanely clear too. Just the look on my mothers face said it all. I basically cried myself to sleep and didn't stop for a long time. My mother wouldn't allow me to go see my aunt when she had to go to the hospital that night to identify her. I really wish she had. All I envision when I step into that ICU is them calling a code on her, and as much as I wish I didn't do that...it's hard not to. My aunt was 45 when she passed away, and it took a week from her surgery date. I always wondered how no one knew the extent of her disease. Why they put her cause of death as heart failure, sure by the end she had total organ shut down, but I guess you could put heart failure as anyones cause of death. A person who was hit by a bus would eventually die due to their heart stopping, no? I don't know.

Enough of that.

My poor mother. Honest to goodness. My mothers father died when she was 11 or 12 years old. She was awoken to her mother screaming for her around 4:30 in the morning. When she left her room she saw her father laying in the hallway, she sat with him while my grandmother called 911, she was the one there when he died of a massive heart attack. She just found out YESTERDAY. 40+ years later, that her father had stopped off for a drink with some cousins and friends that afternoon prior to his death(the Western Hotel for a shot of ginger brandy) and has such a sharp chest pain that he fell out of his chair. The cousins tried to take him to see a Dr. but of course he refused. Anyway, my mother felt crushed by this. Knowing that something could've been done to prevent her fathers death, and that opportunity just flew by. My mother had watched her father and her sister die. Sad.

Ok, no more sad now. JUST FREAKY STUFF.

My uncle was coming over in the morning to finish painting our bathroom walls and vanity. While getting ready to leave the bathroom after brushing my teeth, I heard this deep males voice, but couldn't understand what the person had said. Very mumbly. So I popped out and called for my uncle assuming that he was there already, and no sight of him. I checked outside to see if the landscapers were doing their business, sometimes I can hear them talking. - nope. I then proceeded to check the front, maybe my neighbor was outside - Nope. Ghost? Perhaps my grandfather didn't want my mother to learn that missing piece of the puzzle? You call the shots on this one. All I know, was that I was spooked out of my mind.

I hear from my aunt all the time. (What? Don't make those faces.) Which makes me a happy camper. Actually, when my aunts fiancee finally moved out of the house after she passed, I was alone in the house in the living room, which was directly underneath my aunts bedroom. I was sitting on the couch with the kitties, just taking in the silence, when I heard footsteps upstairs. My aunt had broken her ankle awhile back and kind of acquired a heavy step in the healing process. I sat there chilled, and the cats ran away. At the memorial service for my aunt, there was a picture of her on a table next to the priest. All of a sudden, the picture just flew right over. Not fall over like some pictures do when they're in an old frame. It really just went further than it should've. The priest looked down at the picture and picked it back up to be put on the table and made sure it wouldn't fall again. Five minutes into the priest speaking again, the picture went flying once more - I couldn't help but fall into a fit of laughter ( I think I was the only one.) The priest just left the picture face up on the table this time.

I'm not really sure where else I'm going with this. I think there is a ghost in my house though. Actually my whole household did at one point. Funny.