Image by Rochak Shukla on Freepik
The voice on the other side of the telephone sounded agitated, not like the calm and gentle brother she knew!
He tells her that he is feeling very uncomfortable and has chest pain which frightens him. She tries to reassure her 42-year-old brother that it possibly is just bad indigestion, but urges him to see the doctor the next day, as it already was late at night.
Being the big sister, he always turns to her for advice, and the thought that this could be serious, sits at the back of her mind, but he still is young, so she tries to tell herself that it could just be indigestion.
He gets an appointment with his doctor the following day, trusted by some, but afterward, she learns that others are not happy with this man.
The doctor examines him and his diagnosis is indigestion, so he prescribes medication for that ailment.
A couple of months later, their Dad, who is still active and in good health, collapses and dies from an aortic aneurysm, within half an hour.
Christmas day arrives some three months later, and the family gets together for their annual Christmas lunch. He is not looking good, his face is grey, and he is in severe discomfort, but she is too busy with food prepping and chatting with the family she's not seen for months, so does not make the time to sit down and really listen to him, even though he is unusually quiet.
On Boxing Day, as it used to be called, she receives a frantic phone call from his girlfriend, who hands the phone to a nursing sister who lives next door.
Her brother had collapsed, had no pulse, and despite the neighbour and her husband who is a paramedic, doing CPR, they could not revive him.
This week's question for the Silver Bloggers Blog of the Month - Travel Back to make the Change had me well and truly stumped, as I tried thinking of something cheerful, but could only think of this one time where I may have helped change the events that took place, even though it brought back immense sadness.
I know that we cannot change the tides of life, but when it comes to this, I do believe I could have done something to save my brother from an early death.
As a ten-month-old baby, he had three infectious diseases at one time and was in the isolation ward of a hospital for a long period. I will never forget going with Mom and Dad, waving to him through the glass window, and him crying.
He was my second youngest brother, and I always felt very protective of him after that, and even though he grew up into a strong young man, humble, gentle, and with a great sense of humor, he had learning problems at school.
He became a fireman, a job he really loved, but a fall from a ladder while on duty, caused a knee injury, and despite surgery, he could no longer perform the same duties, as one has to be super fit to be a fireman.
He was given the choice of working in the control room or taking early voluntary retirement.
I could have been more persuasive and urged him to accept the new position, but he, unfortunately, had been swayed by a woman who could not wait to lay her hands on his lump sum payout.
If only I could go back to that first night when he called, I would have driven to his house, and taken him straight to the hospital to have a proper check-up, they most certainly would have done an ECG, something his doctor failed to do, and he may still be with us today.
We requested a post-mortem, and it showed that he only needed a single heart bypass, as there was only one blood clot.
I will never forget my Mom's despair and anguish when we arrived at his apartment.
Losing a second child almost broke Mom Lily, and from that day on, Christmas no longer held the magic it always did.
The lesson I learned here is to listen, really listen, and not ignore that little voice at the back of my head!
Original Content by @lizelle
Thank you for stopping by
Copyright @lizelle – All Rights Reserved
JOIN Hive using my referral LINK
