Why I am dreading Sunday

     On Sunday December 8 my wife and I will join family members in a funeral home for a viewing and service for my little brother Steve.  Last Monday night we got the call that he had gone into cardiac arrest and within a few hours, he passed away.  My brother was a mere 43 years old.  He had been in the hospital for about a month following trouble with his pacemaker.  His heart issues have been ongoing for many years and yet we did not know how weak his heart really was.  At 5 years old, Steve had open heart surgery to close a pin hole that was discovered.  Doctors said he should live a completely normal life.  They did not anticipate the troubles he would encounter later.  About ten years ago, Steve had a pacemaker put in.  His heart had developed some sort of irregular rhythm that needed to be monitored and corrected at times.  Whenever his pacemaker went off it sent a shock into his chest that freaked him out to say the least.  It was this type of episode that put him in the hospital last month.  Doctors began running tests with the hope of putting him on a transplant list.  They tested pretty much every aspect of his health to be sure he would be a suitable candidate. Initially they thought he was prime for it and the first step would be to install a heart pump which would be there until a suitable heart became available.  After about two weeks of testing, some bad news came in.  One of the medications he was taking for his heart has a knack for causing thyroid cancer.  Steve had it.  This particular cancer is apparently not normally deadly but he would not be able to go on the list until he had it removed and was clear for two years.  That was not good news.  Meanwhile, the big battle for Steve was getting the fluid levels down in his body so that they could proceed with a heart pump.  They made little progress over the days before he went into cardiac arrest. When I talked with him over recent weeks, he mentioned that he would hopefully become more bionic than ever.  His favorite show as a child was The 6 Million Dollar Man and he resonated with Steve Austin having had such a major operation as a child.  When he got the pacemaker, he joked again about bionics.  Now he had been expecting to be all the more “Bionic Steve” with a heart pump – though he dreaded the hassles of living with a device that restricted so much of life.  I really miss my nearly bionic little brother!  And so I dread Sunday knowing that it will be a day of tears and wishing that this had just all been a bad dream.

Steve & me and then Steve in High School