My Personal 9/11
The absolute worst day of my entire life…
I have written a lot of about the death of my daughter, and it has infused much of my writing as a physician. The post below was the first about the loss of my daughter. I penned it June 11, 2009…
June 7, 2009 will forever be burned in my memory. June 7, 2009 will always cause me the deepest pain anyone can ever feel. June 7, 2009 will always be the darkest day on the calendar, even if the sun is warm, bright, and plentiful.
June 7, 2009 was the day my wife and I lost our daughter to lymphoma.
She was diagnosed with lymphoma back in January, and it was a shock to all of us. Yet, we were determined to beat this terrible disease with the same ferocity it attacked our beautiful little Angel. So we started the cycles of chemotherapy.
It was a relatively short treatment protocol — six months — but it was quite intense. Our daughter has an underlying disorder, Ataxia-Telangiectasia, which renders her more sensitive to chemotherapy than normal children. Therefore, the protocol was modified in dose for kids with A-T.
But, intense the protocol was. With each cycle, there were complications. After the first cycle, she came back almost a day later with high fevers and low blood cell counts. She stayed a week in the hospital. But, she recovered.
Then came round two: same problem — complications, fevers, and low blood counts. But, she recovered. Rounds three and four and five were similarly difficult. Throughout the rounds, she would get nausea, fevers, diarrhea, and the like. She even had bloody, quite bloody, diarrhea, and it caused us and her much distress. But, she recovered.
Furthermore, in the middle of all of this was repeated visits to the clinic by my wife and daughter. Whenever something would go wrong, we would call the doctors, and they would say, “Bring her in.” So, my wife would bring her in. That’s not to mention the multiple hospital stays.
Every time she would get chemo, she would stay in the hospital. In the beginning, my wife, Reem, would stay at the hospital with my daughter, and I would stay at home with my other two daughters. But, this became untenable, especially with my work schedule. So, my wife and I developed…
