You truly are amazing.

As you all know, I lost my brother, and its been hard..but, my amazing family is trying to help people the way he did on a day to day basis, by making them smile. 

He had kidney failure. He was born with it but, the doctors didn’t catch it until he was 6. By this point the damage was not fixable. They basically said that he would need a kidney transplant and wouldn’t live a long life, ie. he would never make it to 70. 

When we were growing up, it never really effected him. He had to use catheters, but besides that, you would never know unless he told you. But when he got to his late teens, everything caught up.

At 18, he was put on dialysis. For those of you that dont know what that is, the nurse/person plugs you into a machine that takes your blood out of your body, runs it threw filters, cleans it, and puts it back into your body. REALLY big needles. Anyway, when someone is put on dialysis they are also put onto the transplant list.

Do you know how many people are on the transplant list? Way too many to count, that’s how many. And it’s a really long waiting list. In Michigan, it’s 5 to 7 years to get an organ.  

You may be asking “Why didn’t you donate?” Well, that’s a very good question. Obviously my parents were right in line to try and give him a kidney. But, it’s not an easy thing to do. Months of testing and, for some odd-ball reason, counseling. But not the therapy kind, more of they want o make sure you aren’t a crazy person just trying to give parts of your body away (apparently people try to do that??) So Mom went first. 

First test is a simple blood test, to make sure that she woud even be a match. And surprise, surprise she was. So they go onto more testing. Well somewhere in the midst of testing, “they” found that Mom has an enlarged spleen. What does this mean? WE HAVE NO CLUE!!! There is nothing wrong if you have an enlarged spleen. But your organs are a no-no for donation if you do. Makes complete sense…NOT. So we go onto Popa (dad).

He was also a positive blood match. He passes all the testing needed with flying colors. “they” don’t find anything wrong with him. Not a thing. The final test to donate is a full body MRI and CT-Scan, to find any abnormalities. There was one. As if life wasn’t a shit hole enough, “they” fond out Popa had cancer in his thyroid. Joy. With the biopsy, “they” discovered that it was three kinds of cancer in one spot. The tumors were so big, as big a tangerine (a small orange). Cancer treatment then started. Two surgeries to remove that cancer and radiation to kill and cells left behind. 

All of this was about three years.

So then to me. Of course I wanted to donate. Stephan and I weren’t always the best of friends. In fact, when we were younger 8 -15, Stephan would make a daily habit of beating the shit out of me, as every normal older brother does. Until, I started to stand up to him. As soon as I said enough is enough, you won’t do this anymore, we became friends. We started getting along, hanging out, I would hangout with him and his friends and he started hanging out with me and mine. It was amazing. He turned into the person that I went to first when some thing was wrong. He wasn’t just a brother anymore, he was my best friend. Yeah, we still fought. But it was more of bickering, making fun of each other just to get a few laughs. 

I was just about to start the testing processes, the blood test which was an obvious match, when he told me not to. I was his little sister. He defended me. He took care of me. And he wouldn’t allow it to be the other way around. He wouldn’t let me have a restricted life so he wouldn’t. He didn’t want me to have to be on the diet he was, or take pills like he did, or not be able to run around and play sports because it would be too dangerous for me. 

At this point, he only had 16% function in one kidney. The other was completely dead. And it was getting worse. He did dialysis three times a week. He was not allowed to travel anywhere. My mother is from Germany, Stephan and I are both German citizens. Our family is over there. My dads side of the family is in Arizona. So he didn’t really get to see them like I did. Mom and I would go over seas for a few weeks at a time, but he couldn’t. Thats when I started getting mad at him. He wouldn’t allow me to make his life easier at my expense. 

We lost him last year on February 4th, which happens to be my mothers birthday, at the young age of 22. 

You may be wondering where Im going but this all make sense.

Dialysis is not cheep. Luckily, he had insurance. The monthly bill for someone without insurance to pay, is over $60,000. For one month. Most people are on dialysis for YEARS.

People can’t afford this. This is where you come in. You know those tab-things on pop cans? The thing you pull and it presses down on the opening thing BOOOM, the can is now open for business. That little thing, is a free minute of dialysis for someone that can’t pay. We set up a fundraiser, in memory of Stephan, and we collect these. We have hundreds of thousands of them. 

But we need more. It’s not hard. It can be fun, actually. There are people that have competitions in family, whoever gets the most, gets a free dinner or something. But im asking you to helps us. If you could collect them, and send them to me, I would be so grateful.

Collect as many as you can. Put them in a bag or box or envelope and send them to me. If it’s only 10, or 10,000, it doesn’t matter. Every little bit helps.

If you have any questions, go to:  https://www.facebook.com/events/299440053406505/ 

An address can be given to anyone that asks, on here (message me) or on the Facebook page. 

Thank you so much.  

Slowing falling apart. I can’t keep strong anymore. I can’t keep this mask on. In 7 days I will live the second worst day of my life. The smile is gone. The person I need here the most is the one I miss the most. He is the reason I’m am not who I should be. I can’t pretend, I won’t pretend anymore. I’m raw. This is me. Broken and hurt. Sad and lonely. I just want my brother. I want to hear his laugh. I want to get in a fight with him like I used to. I want to tell him I need a hug. I want so much that I’ll never have again. I miss him. More then I ever thought possible.

It would be awesome of you all would distract me. But, I know you won’t. You never do.

laughingatmynightmare:

So… that’s pretty exciting.

Go back to sleep. Lol

(Source: whatlifebringsthisway)