One Sister's Love: A Memoir

I have two sisters and one brother. Some of my best memories are from my older sister Carrie. She loved peanut butter and meat but strangely enough, she was a vegetarian. We would do things together and she would drive me places. She was a reckless driver. One of her favorite games was to see how many red lights she could run on her way to school in the morning. Her record was eleven. She was an amazing speaker and a straight A student and there wasn’t one person who couldn’t know her and dislike her.

About two years ago I was picked up by a family friend, Emily Coxhead. I couldn’t understand why though. I was supposed to take the bus, but Emily said that I needed to com with her. At her house I played with her kids, Hana and Samantha who were older and younger than me. I watched TV and played Nintendo, but I was still weirded out about why she picked me up. I was supposed to go home. She wouldn’t tell me anything. Finally my mom called and delivered the fourth worst news that I have ever heard.

“Scott,” she said, “Your sister has cancer. Carrie has leukemia.”

My first reaction was to laugh then to cry once the seriousness of the situation kicked in but now that I look back on it, I don’t think that it did. My sister can’t have leukemia. She’s my sister you know? I was stunned and angry and felt like my feelings which I usually keep separate, had been put in a blender. I can’t remember much after that. I don’t know if I cried or not but I did that night. Emily took me to children’s memorial hospital to see her. I remember how she looked. It looked as if a young, healthy, teenager who was active and had stuff to do was accidentally placed in that bed. She had tubes and wires and I could see that she was severely drained but she perked up when she saw me and my younger sister who I adore but is annoying most of the time, Nora. It was like Carrie had been given caffeine pills (which I later learned she had). My mom told me what the Leukemia was. It was type A.L.L. or Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia. Apparently it was the easiest type to cure and that was good. She would be given certain drugs but no radiation. That was good. It was like someone else was in my body. I was being told that Carrie had to go into remission. That’s when the cancer is all gone from the body. I had a very restless sleep that night. When I went back to school it was awkward.

“So Scott. What’s up?”
“My sister has leukemia”
“Oh *silence* well, *more silence* um, *even more silence* I’m so sorry. Bye”
It didn’t feel right. I would think, “Why are you sorry?” I guess that’s what people say when they don’t know what to say. I would’ve said, “That really sucks man. If I could help I would.”
That’s the kind of thing that I wanted to hear.

The next couple of days were mostly the same. I was distracted in school and I hated being at home. Finally, eight days later she went into remission and ame home. I was so happy. Nora and I made signs and posters for her. I helped the pale stick who was my sister into the house and into bed. She was still very alive and willing but she couldn’t do much. I think what she probably hated the most was being unable to do anything. She loved to help but couldn’t. After a while she got better and eventually everything just settled into a steady rhythm. My sister had cancer. So what, she’s still my sister.

At Christmas time a bunch of my cousins and uncles and I all shaved our heads. It was pretty fun. I was bald and I loved it. I had a sister who had leukemia and it showed. I went to my grandparents for Christmas and they got a huge shock. I went back to school and wore a hat. Right before class Peter asked, “Hey Scott how come your wearing a hat?” and he took it off. Then he yelled and jumped back in surprise. A couple a people turned around and screamed. It was awesome.

So everyone who didn’t know that my sis had leukemia now knew. That was a big signal. My head had no hair. It was like a lighthouse, unable to ignore. After a while everyone got used to it and life continued. I had a normal 6th grade life. A year went by uneventfully. Then in March everything changed.

My sister relapsed. It was the third worst news ever. I was confused when I first heard those words. “What does relapsed mean?” I asked. I was told that it meant she had cancer again. This time a much more intense round of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant was required to get rid of the cancer. I didn’t think it could get any worse. They tested us for bone marrow and I was a match. I was going to donate bone marrow to my sister. All her bone marrow (the spongy tissue inside bones that make red blood cells) was going to be radiated off and then matching bone marrow (marrow has types just like blood) was to be transplanted into her. This would help kill off all the cancer, but there was a catch. She had to go into remission first. March went by and Carrie wasn’t getting better. It took eight days last time to get her into remission. This time it was much longer. Almost a full month went by and then what looked like a spider bite appeared on her arm. The next morning it had swollen to the size of a baseball.

She was put in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit or the P.I.C.U. for short. There she was put under an oxygen mask. My parents took turns sleeping there every night for four nights. She had those tubes and terrible I.V.s. She looked, well, blah. The baseball lump was an infection and needed surgery to be removed. Finally she was put back in the normal hospital. It seemed like a lot longer than four days but that’s all it was. I visited her regularly for the next two weeks. She only left for her high school prom. Two oxygen tanks and a wheelchair were needed to cart her around the prom. She lasted longer than anyone expected. The optimistic ones thought of maybe two hours. At an astounding four hours it wore her out. The next week she was out in the P.I.C.U. again, this time for a fungal infection. Her lungs had filled with liquid and her immune system, which keeps bad stuff out of the lung, broke down. This combination resulted in her getting a lung fungus. Like the fungus that grows under nails or fungus like a mushroom. Four nights in the P.I.C.U. were required to keep her alive. It was unnerving how familiar I became with that hospital. After a while in the regular hospital the doctors decided that she’d be better off at home. So she came home and again Nora and I made signs, but this time she’d been out for the whole month not just a couple of days. This meant that heavy signs. She still had the lung fungus but was on medication and being at home seemed to be work better than the hospital. She made trips to the hospital once a week for chemo but was at home the rest of the time. She slept in my brother’s bed because it was closer to the ground. I slept in the same room in a bunk. One night she woke me up to make her some popcorn. She got craving like a pregnant woman. Apparently right then and there she wanted popcorn, and lots of it. Unfortunately it was 3 a.m. and she was too tired to get out of bed. I was sleeping not eight feet away from her and luckily she still had a strong voice. I lumbered downstairs monitored the microwave and slumped upstairs into bed. Carrie said I was asleep before she could say thank you. I don’t remember a thing.

I was in the car one day coming home from the hospital when my brother told me that her most recent round of chemo didn’t have an effect at all. They had one more shot at saving her life. I wasn’t worried one bit. I had a mind set that no one could shake. My sister was going to survive and I knew it.In May she had her high school graduation. She still had her fungus and her cancer and she was in a wheelchair but she had her high school graduation. They came to her to give her diploma and her certificate instead of her walking the stage. Everyone applauded even though they were supposed to hold it till the end. I remember her in her white robes and her blue sash. Afterward there was a big party. There was a huge tent in my driveway. Everyone played poker and jumped on the trampoline and drank virgin margaritas and played softball and built fires. I went around with a video camera because Carrie sat up in our room and took visitors and I had to take a video to show her what her party was like.

After school was over I took a week long trip with my uncles and my younger sister. No Carrie. I was home for one day and then left for camp. No Carrie. I spent about a day and a half there. I did a lot in that day and a half. It still seems like it was so much longer. Two nights and one and a half days are all though, I got a call from my dad in the morning. The message that I was delivered said to call him and that my brother was coming to get me. Coming to get me? What could this be about? I knew instantly that something had happened to Carrie. I didn’t know what but I suspected that she was back in P.I.C.U. I called collect and my dad accepted. My dad delivered the second worst news I have ever heard. “Scott, the doctors say that there’s nothing more that they can do for Carrie. We’re bringing her home so she can die here.”

I was so choked up I couldn’t speak. I started to cry. I managed mangled sobs of “No” throughout the conversation. I took down some credit card numbers that I could use if I wanted to call him again. Then I hung up and left for my tent. There I cried for a good fifteen minutes into my camping pillow. Some fellow campers came by to ask what was wrong after I had stopped sobbing. I told them and they told everyone else to bug off for me. I didn’t come out of my tent for a while. I read my new Harry potter book and did other stuff. I didn’t come out until someone invited me to go down to build a fire with them. Sure I had time to kill. I sat around for a couple of hours until my brother arrived with his girlfriend Nicole.We loaded the car first with all my junk. Then we hung out. I led them down to the shooting range where we shot bullets at targets which was fun. I led them around a tour of the camp which was also fun. We got in the car and Nicole fell asleep in the back. My brother and I talked about one thing, Carrie. He told me how my parents were and how Nora was and how Carrie was planning a list of things to do. On it was to have a sleepover with her Regina friends and one with her friends from E.T.H.S. One was to go to a Sox game. She wanted to go to Dave and busters and she wanted to go to Nickle City, formally and still commonly known as Super Just Games.

I remember her sleepovers well. They watched movies and talked. There were a lot of people there and every one of them focused on Carrie. I stayed up late listening to the first one but I couldn’t hear the second. I remember the Cub’s Sox game. We were given a box and I actually got to go out onto the field and meet the Sox players. It was incredible. While Carrie refused to go out to the batting practice and meet them she got a glow on her face knowing that we were having tons of fun. Back in the box I watched the game along with most of my 22 cousins and Uncles and Aunts. I watched a Cubs Sox tournament like it was a normal day.

Next I went to Nickel City, the arcade where everything costs a nickel and I had tons of fun. Nora pushed Carrie around and I played with Luke. We played nickel betting games and ticket games. As I remember Carrie won the most but no one cared. It was the first time in two months that my mom let her goes off without her there to help.Later in the week my whole family went to Dave and Busters. This arcade was a lot more expensive than Nickel City and wasn’t that much better. I remember my two sisters playing a rafting game. They paddled and paddled in their plastic raft and my older sister had this glowing radiance on her face. It was great. I didn’t have a sister who was going to die then. I had a sister who was full of life.

The fourth of July rolled around and I went to the parade, but I only went for Carrie and when I ended up sitting around for an hour without her I went back home. That night we went to the fireworks where I pushed her in the wheelchair down at the beach. She and everyone else colored in her coloring books, her Winnie the Pooh coloring books. It was strange but extrememely fun. I watched the amazing fireworks and their brilliant display of colors. It was lots of fun but the streets were way too crowded after them. I took the L home with by brother and his friends that came to the fireworks with us instead of driving home with my dad and mom and sisters. I remember waiting on the platform looking over the high elevated train station rails watching the parking garage where my dad parked. My brother and I were watching for my dad in the stream of cars that poured from the exit. The way the street was set up. One lane poured into the entrance and one took the cars away from the exit. As we were watching the exit this crazy car comes out from the entrance, totally illegal, and then runs up empty left lane, which was empty, because it went the other way. Sure enough, it was my dad. As we walked up to the front door my dad pulled in behind us. We had just beaten them. That night I talked late into the night with my sister. It is one of the most personal moments I have ever had with her or anybody else. We talked about death and life and school and family and everything imaginable.

The next day we were all supposed to go up to Wisconsin and visit her cancer camp. Carrie went to several cancer camps. They were all designed to help people with cancer have some fun and hang out with people like them. I remember her saying that at camp she could just say one day, “Wow I feel really constipated today.” Someone else would always reply, “Me too.” And the rest of the group would nod and tell the rest about their problems for the day. It was never uncommon to hear, “This infected bleeding disgusting hangnail is really bugging me.” But at school she never felt “in”. She was always apart. Dad and Nora and I went in the first car and Mom and Carrie and Luke were to follow. Car one got more than halfway and then were forced to turn around because to my sister didn’t feel up to it. We complied because she had cancer. I got home and went straight to bed because it was 11:00. At 4:30 in the morning my dad woke me up. Our conversation, the worst conversation I have ever had in my life went something like this.

“Scott.*shake* Scooott. Get up Scott *shake*”
“Humph”
“Scott get up”
“Dad it’s. It’s zzzzzz”
“Scott!”
“Dad it’s *reach for alarm clock* 4:30 dad go away *roll over*”
“Scott get up”
“Mmumphle dumph. Go away. I wanna sleep.”
“Scott, Carrie didn’t make it through the night.”
“What?”
“Carrie’s dead Scott. She’s dead”