Belinda's Story of her brother

The most strongest memory I have out of all, is the night when Luke's heart went into gross heart failure (Wednesday 17th May, 1989). We were in the Red Cross homes so that the hospital could contact us if anything went wrong with Luke's surgery. One of the main three things I remember is talking to my step cousins, Jay and Troy, because Luke absolutely idolised them when he was young and it was pretty uncommon to talk to them on the phone. The second was sitting outside the post op room (back then 8 years olds were not allowed in to see the person who was operated on) for around an hour and a half with a pizza and a bottle of pepsi. I know it's a weird thing to remember, but I hadn't eaten, and didn't want to eat my dinner without mum and dad. The third and final was being taken down to the children's ward by one of the nurses. Amanda (the nurse) turned out to be my guardian angel. She took me to the TV room, made me a Milo and read me stories until I fell asleep. Amanda was my special friend for the whole time I spent down in Brisbane. I haven't seen her for ages, and she may not even remember me, but that one wonderful thing that she did, has kept her in my heart forever. There were other nurses that I became friends with, but Amanda was my favourite by far.

During this time, I also became friends with other kids who were down in Brisbane. A lot of them had heart problems, and others were like me, someone who had a heart brother/sister. But there was one little girl that I became friends with who had definitely had a rough trip. Michele is only 2 years younger than me, but she had a stroke after her heart surgery. When I first met her, she was in a pram, with her mum. One whole side of her body was limp and only being 8, I didn't know what was wrong with her. But mum explained it to me, and it didn't bother me at all. I spent all my time when I wasn't seeing Luke, with Michele. We used to lay in her bed, and play. The only problem was that she wouldn't let me go back to see Luke at all. If I tried to get out of bed, she was start screaming and grabbing for me.

Although the times in Brisbane were hard, I had an even worse time when it was only Luke and mum going down there. I tried my hardest every time they left not to cry, but I couldn't help it, which resulted in mum crying as well. But, I have to say, my dad was the greatest. He knew that I was very upset about mum and Luke going away for such a long period of time, and he really comforted me. My grandparents were wonderful too. There was nothing they wouldn't do for me. I was a complete dancing addict when I was younger. I did ballet and tap dancing at a dancing school and participated in eisteddfods and things like that. Because dad worked on Saturdays, we had friends who would take me to ballet and bring me home too. The year that Luke was very sick, I was going to do my very first ballet solo. I had my tutu all ready, and had started learning my dance. But after a while, I wasn't really putting my heart into learning the dance, because I was so worried about my brother. I stopped learning the dance and pulled out of the eisteddfod. But the other girls who were going into the competition, didn't like the fact that I just dropped out. They told me that Donna (the teacher) had spent a lot of time teaching me my dance and that it wasn't fair for me to drop out. She could have used the time she spent on me, teaching them their dances, was one of the comments I got.

But that wasn't the last of the comments that I have received due to my brother's illness. When I was 10 (in grade 4) I was told by a girl in my class that she hoped my brother would die. It was only a year after he did almost die, and I was so upset that I burst into tears and ran outside of the class room. The girl was someone that not many people liked at all, so I had a lot of sympathy, especially from my teacher. That wasn't the last of it though, a year later, a girl I didn't get along with, told me the exact same thing. It didn't effect me as bad as the first time, but I still felt really upset and angry. Mum was really angry when I told her another girl had told me that she wished my brother had died. And also she was more aggravated at the second girl because nearly everyone knew that mum got really angry at the first girl. So mum stopped her at the front gate and told her what she really thought. I wasn't there, I think I caught the bus home or something, but the girl was definitely as sweet as pie to me afterwards. At the moment, we have an exchange student who goes to the same school as the second girl and is friends with her. She's rang here a couple of times and still feels really bad about what she said. I think it's good!

Although two people gave me a hard time about it, a lot of kids were very supportive. When Luke was better, but still on medicine, he used to run around at lunchtime. And he definitely wasn't allowed to. He didn't understand that if he ran around too much or got kicked in the chest, some serious damage could be done. I was like a little watcher for mum. She had to go down to the school at lunch time to give him his medicine, but as they say when the cat is away, the mice will play. One lunch time I found him running around and stopped him. He was sweating really bad, and his hands were as cold as ice. I told him to stop running around or else I'd tell mum (my usual reason), but he just ignored me. I was so worried that we would die or hurt himself, that I burst out crying in front of all my friends. They were very understanding, but I was still really angry at Luke for not doing what I said.

When I was in Grade 9, we were given an assignment for English, where we had to do a speech on our hero. Most of the girls picked famous people, like Anne Frank, but I thought I'd be different. So I picked to do my talk on Luke. My teacher didn't see anything wrong with it, but was a bit weary at first, since I was new at the school and no one knew about Luke's heart. So, I asked mum for some information and she gave me the notes she had written down on a piece of paper when Luke was sick. I was fine when writing the speech and assignment, I was happy that I was finding out what had happened to Luke, so I would be able to understand it a lot better. But when I got up for my speech, I was a wreck. It was fine until I got to the part about where they needed to use defribulators to keep his heart going. Tears began to creep into my eyes. But it wasn't only me. There were other girls in the class crying as well. When I finished the speech, I couldn't help it, I just broke down into tears. I felt like running out of the class room (but couldn't because I had just recently had knee surgery and my leg was in a straight leg splint). One of my friends asked the teacher if she could take me outside, so I could calm down a bit. I ended up getting a pretty good mark for the speech, but my teacher said she would have loved to give me an A, for the way it was written. Too bad that I wasn't speaking as loud as I should have, and I didn't deliver the speech properly. Oh well.

Grade 10 was the first year of high school that Luke didn't have health problems. But unfortunately, it was the year that mum got very sick. She got blood clots in her lungs and had to be put into hospital for around three weeks. It reminded me of the times that Luke was sick, because dad was the only parent at home. I practically turned into mum. I was in charge of getting my little sister ready every morning (making her lunch, getting her bathed and dressed etc), making dinner for dad, Luke, Aimee and myself, and also doing my other ordinary stuff for school. It was hard, but with the help from dad, my grandparents and my mum's friends (which were often my friend's mums) I got along fine. At the moment, no one is really sick, which is great, and hopefully it stays that way.

Well, thanks for reading my story everyone. I hope that it has given you an insight to how a sibling copes. I definitely recommend to any other siblings that they should write a story too.

Bye!