Why I Do What I Do
One year ago today, my little brother died.
Stage 4 colon cancer.
Six weeks from diagnosis to death.
He was 54 years old.
No previous medical conditions.
His oncologist said it was “the most aggressive cancer I have ever seen.”
A Year Later
A year later, we are all still trying to make sense of it.
In reality, there may be no sense to be made.
His partner believes he never fully came to terms with our mother’s sudden death - a heart attack that took her nine years earlier. I sometimes wonder whether years of ultra-processed food played a role.
Who really knows?
What I do know is that everything changed in six weeks.
When It Began
It started a month earlier with stomach pains.
A colonoscopy had been scheduled. It never happened.
The night before the procedure he was admitted to Accident & Emergency for scans. That’s when they told him: stage 4 cancer, already present in all major organs.
There was nothing they could do.
They gave him a life expectancy of six months.
The moment he accepted that prognosis, we began to lose him.
My brother - at our house on his birthday
Acceptance
He didn’t want to hear about what his big sister had done nine years earlier to heal from stage 3 breast cancer.
He accepted his fate.
With grace.
With dignity.
My brother went from having lunch with his sister to being gone a month later.
How do you process that kind of loss?
The Final Days
In the end, the pain was unbearable.
Even constant morphine barely touched the discomfort.
At first he had been assigned to the palliative care team. Then, somewhere along the way, someone decided to try chemotherapy - “to give him a bit more time.”
Within 48 hours of that first infusion, my brother had died.
He developed sepsis.
His death was painful.
Wild flowers gathered on my reflective walk this morning
Why I Share This
I share this knowing it is not an isolated story.
Too many families experience something similar.
And it highlights something we cannot ignore: the urgent need for preventative medicine, education, awareness, and personal responsibility for our health.
My brother was an intelligent man.
He had a loving partner.
Two loving adult children.
Three beautiful grandchildren.
He had everything to live for.
Yet in six weeks he was gone.
What Remains
We have spent the past year mourning him.
Trying to understand how he could disappear so quickly.
How we were given so little time.
And asking a thousand questions that will likely never be answered.
A Simple Plea
Please - do whatever you can to take responsibility for your health.
Eat clean.
Move your body.
Listen to what that body is telling you.
Search for peace.
Learn from people who live - and have lived - long, healthy lives.
No one is coming to save us.
Rest in peace, little brother.
We miss you every day. ❤️
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Thank you for sharing your story.