Part One – Silent Sirens
It was 1995, or 1996. I was about 10 or 11 years old, and not yet interested in all things medical. When my sister fell ill to what the doctor described as a common but aggressive bout of the flu, I didn’t ask any more questions.
It was February, and my sister, Gemma, had just come home from a school camp. She’d only been home a few days when she started to feel sick. My mum kept Gemma out of school the day she fell ill, mainly because she was running a fever and vomiting – had been since the early hours of the morning. I went off to school.
When I came home about 6 hours later, Gemma had been vomiting so violently that the force of it had ruptured a blood vessel in her eye, and the sclera was completely red. She was very fatigued, and complained about muscle and joint pain, and a stiff neck. She complained about the light hurting her eyes and giving her a headache, but Gemma was prone to suffering photosensitivity with her migraines. There was a strange rash of small bruises on her arms and legs. The doctor had sent Gemma home. It was the flu, he said.
Gemma went to bed without any food or drink. A few moments after her head hits the pillow, she’s asleep. My mum always says that she knew something wasn’t right that day. I think she still beats her self up about it, because she should have followed her instincts more. I don’t really see it that way, because that night my sister had to sleep on a mattress beside my parents bed. If my mum hadn’t insisted on that, Gemma would be dead.
During the night, Gemma became disoriented and delusional. Her fever soared higher than it had earlier that day. She couldn’t keep down so much as a mouthful of water, let alone a pill. My mum sat on the side of her bed, watching over Gemma as she slept. Gem deteriorated through the night, and her headache appeared to be worse than any migraine she’d ever had. She complained that the pain was getting too much to handle.
“I want to die, just let me die,” she said, crying. “I wish I was dead.”
