Wishing you were somehow here again...

My half-sister Shannyn found out she had thyroid problems when she was trying to get pregnant back in 2001.  Her doctor told her that her thyroid needed to come out.  She went in for the "routine" surgery, and the doctors messed up.  They didn't follow protocol and ignored bad reactions she was having...

...36 hours later she was dead.  We spent about 24 hours in the hospital just watching her slip away.  I was 17 at the time. 

I miss her so much and still don't understand how doctors, who take an oath to "do no harm", could completely botch a routine and relatively simple surgery like this.  The state of Massachusetts didn't understand either; my brother-in-law sued the doctors and won.  Seven years after her death, a jury found that the doctors were negligent and awarded him quite a large sum of money (8 figures).

I've been thinking about her a lot lately, and how she never was able to experience the joys of being pregnant, of having a baby, of living past 31 years old.  It makes me feel guilty...that I am alive, and she isn't.  I have no idea why I feel this way, I can't help it.  My brother-in-law has since remarried and they had a baby in July.  I couldn't be happier for them.

I can't help but be worried by this process of trying to conceive, given my experience.  I'm just so afraid that we'll have trouble and then they'll find something wrong with me that needs "routine" surgery to fix...

I love you, Shannyn.