F*CK! Can ANYTHING in life go right?

[mrs_helenesnape]

Putting this under the cut because it's been such a craptastic day, and I want to spare my flist.

To start off, I'm woke up obnoxiously early by the news that my brother (the one with the countless medical issues... dialysis, blindness, high BP) was admitted to the hospital. He's had shortness of breath for 3 DAYS, doing his nighttime dialysis exacerbated the problem because it fills his abdomen with fluid, compressing his diaphragm and lungs, so he skipped it last night. He couldn't catch his breath, so off the the ER to find out that he has pneumonia. Once they admit him, and placed in a room, the head nurse makes him move to a completely different part of the hospital (he was on 4th floor of tower 3, then moved to 4th floor of tower 1), he has to be on constant heart monitoring in the cardiac wing because his BP was 210/128 in the ER. They do a bit more testing to see why his bp is so high... he has congestive heart failure. WTF? He's 40 years old, and he has heart failure? I don't see why his primary doctor, or even his kidney (dialysis) doctor didn't request further testing long before this because he has had out of control BP for quite a while. Tomorrow, he's getting cath'ed. For some reason they believe he might have a serious blockage, that brought on a heart attack at some point recently. They will be rooting around in his heart, shooting it full of that special dye to see what's going on with his ticker.

I'm so freaked out! I had a great grandmother who died of congestive heart failure. When the said CHF, I immediately thought to myself "oh, god! My brother's gonna die." I can't help but think the worst possible scenarios because that's what I know about other cases of CHF. Jack has been through so much stuff in the past year. I'm really worried that this next diagnosis is going to put him over the edge. I know he is in bad shape, and there's so much wrong that the statistics could very well be against him... but damnit! I don't know what I'll do if I lose my brother. He's the one who taught me how to read before I ever went to kindergarten. He sat by me on the school bus so the older kids wouldn't pick on me. He's been there for me during a lot of important stuff in my life. I wouldn't be me without my brother's influence, so I certainly don't know how life will ever be the same if he's no longer in it.

I'm so upset right now! This day ranks pretty damn high on the suckage meter. :(((((