From Michele: Growing up, you probably envisioned what you wanted your life to look like. Whether it’s being married, having a career you love, or having children, I bet for many, you pictured your siblings to be there through both your ups and downs. But for many, including Brittany, it isn’t so. Ever since her little sister was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma Cancer, life has been quite the battle. From watching her sister go through horrific treatments to losing her Dad in between, read about Brittany. She is one strong woman as you can see.
6 years ago my entire world went black when we got the call; my little sister was confirmed stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer. My little sister is 8 years younger than me and because of life circumstances, she is much more my daughter than sister. To hear the word cancer felt like the dirtiest word in the human language.
For those 6 years she has fought the hard fight. She started treatment immediately at a cancer research hospital. She’s undergone so many different chemo therapies that I’ve forgotten the names. Some chemo therapies were so new they didn’t even have a name, just a string of numbers. She underwent a stem cell transplant (much like bone marrow transplant) which still haunts me at night when I get flashbacks to the most grueling procedure I’ve witnessed. They take patients to literally to the brink of death for their bodies to accept new stem cells. Then it’s an excruciatingly slow climb back to regain health.
All the while, I sat bedside to nearly all of it in the 6 years, wishing I could make it better.
Flash forward to March of 2019 and I get a phone call from my aunt in another state. She’s choking back tears to get out the words how sorry she is, my father just passed away unexpectedly. He had diabetes untreated for many years and was hospitalized twice from diabetic complications and nearly died those two times. He got his life turned back around and regained his health back. He was the happiest he’d ever been, so this news came as a shock! We found out that he had died from heart failure. An unexpected complication from his diabetes.
Fast forward a couple months from that and my world was turned upside down once again. My sister was told there are no longer any active treatments, they have exhausted all possibilities and her cancer is too aggressive to cure. She is terminal. We made the transition to hospice.
Months after that she came to live with me full-time. Every morning I wake up and wonder to myself “When I go into her room, is she going to be breathing?” And every time I have a dream about my Dad I wonder “Did he come visit me to be there because my sister’s time is up?”
Everyday has felt like a waking nightmare. One, that for the most part, I have kept to myself.
In the wake of this devastating news, my sister continues to inspire me daily. In all 6 years she never lost her sweet nature. She has been kind and thoughtful and more worried about others than myself. On some of the scariest nights we shared in the hospital she’d turn and look at me and say “wow Brittany this must be so scary for you. I’m sorry.” And when she talks about dying she says she’s more worried about those she’s leaving behind.
And while nothing can ever take away all the hurt, my one salvation has been yoga. I found it 3 years ago in the midst of all the darkness. It became one hour a day I would connect back to my body and breath and there wasn’t room in my mind for anything else.
I knew the immense powers of yoga and knew very quickly that I wanted to teach yoga. I wanted to give back what I have received. I completed teacher training and have now been teaching for almost a year.
This week I have been struggling a lot. During classes this week I decided to weave bits of the idea of letting go of this idea life is supposed to be easy or perfect, and the idea of letting go of boundaries that no longer serve us.
Repeating that “it’s ok to not be ok”. I had many tearful thank-you’s after class as they told me that helped them not feel so alone. A gentle reminder we all have stuff going on behind the scenes even though our culture has told us to keep it to ourselves.
I didn’t have as much time with my Dad as I wanted. I don’t know how much time I have left with my sister. But what I do know is that human connection is vital. I’m learning some boundaries keep us caged in, and that being vulnerable deepens relationships.
We can’t get through this crazy thing called life without the support of one another, and without the willingness to begin to break down walls and barriers and push past our culture that insists we remain surface-level.
I’ve kept so much of this fear, pain, and anger to myself. Partially at the risk of scaring off others, of making them uncomfortable or the thought that it will be too much and they won’t want to hear about it. The idea I might lose friends, or my yoga students at my job.
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