Sometimes I forget just how awesome you guys are. But after the comments I received last night and the ones you wrote this morning while my lazy butt was sleeping, I won't forget again!! Thank you so much to all who commented. And thank you to those who read, but left no mark of having been here. It means more to me than any of you know.

Crying?? Who, me?? No. There's something in my eye. Shut up. =P

I've tried over and over to write this post. I've written 3 different copies but as I went back and read them again, I realized how much hatred and anger I would be shoving in your faces. I'm not a hateful person and I don't want anyone to think that about me. So.... Ctrl-A, Delete, All gone....

Let's see if I can do this again and just give the facts of it all.

My cousin was the mother of 4 kids from ages 11yrs to 3yrs. She was in and out of their lives weekly. They stayed with their grandparents & their dads while she went out and did... whatever it was that she was doing. Now, don't get me wrong. She loved her kids with her entire heart. She just wasn't the full time mom that she could've been. Most of that, I attribute to her upbringing.

She ended up catching a virus that was going around our area. Some got over it in a week and others, like myself, were afflicted for more than a month.

She had been doing some really hard drugs and her immune system was basically shot. She ended up at the hospital one night because she said she could barely breathe.

The doctors did x-rays of her lungs and said they were clear. They said it was asthma, gave her an inhaler and sent her home. She didn't have asthma so obviously their course of treatment did nothing to help.

The next day, she was back at the hospital. They gave her some meds and sent her home. Within hours, she started having an allergic reaction and headed back to the hospital. So what did the doctors do? The same thing any doctor would do. They gave her more of those same meds she was allergic to and sent her home. (Back off from the anger, Chris!!!)

Surprise!! She was back at the hospital within hours. They finally decided they weren't smart enough to figure out what was wrong with her and they arranged for an ambulance to transfer her to a another hospital.

The details of what happened over the next day or so are confusing to me. I don't know why they gave her meds to make her sleep, but they did. And they put a tube in her lungs so a machine could breathe for her. They diagnosed her with pneumonia and said her lungs were more than half filled with fluid. They didn't understand how the first hospital could take x-rays and not see all of the fluid. We were informed later that had the first hospital seen the fluid... well.. I wouldn't be writing this post.

They drained fluid from her lungs and gave her different combinations of medications to try and make her body stop killing itself. One of the meds seemed to be helping but her feet started turning purple and there was a risk of her losing one of her feet. They (not the doctors) decided to stop giving her that medication. (Just fyi, if you have to choose between my life or my foot... cut the foot off, mkay?)

All of a sudden, her temp started rising. She stayed in the 101 to 102 range for days. They tried different meds to try and bring the temp down but nothing worked. And apparently the hospital didn't have an ice machine. I'm all for meds, but, I know that ice helps! I know this from personal experience and I still don't understand why they didn't at least try it.

I walked into her room on March 2nd and the heat in the room almost knocked me back out the door. It was at this point that I went crazy. Why wasn't anything being done to stop her temperature from rising? Who decided to stop wiping her face with the wet cloth? It was helping! Her temp would drop. Why did you people stop? And who!!!!!!!! WHO!!! turned off the fan? Why? Why did you turn it off? Why did you people let her temperature get SO high? And so help me, if I ever find out who turned up the thermostat in her room because THEY were cold..... (Back off, Chris)

They decided to take her off of the meds that were making her sleep. They said it shouldn't take long for her to wake up. After an hour, she didn't wake up and the doctors started talking about turning off the machines that were breathing for her. They said that her body temp had probably killed some of her brain function, but of course, they couldn't be sure.

This is the point where I will totally skip over the details that make the hate come out. And will just tell you that they, very quickly, decided to go ahead and end her "suffering".

The doctors asked that we leave so that they could take out the breathing tube. I stayed by my aunt's side and refused to leave. She told these 2 men from a church to tell all of the 20+ people that were in the hallway, that if they wanted to come into the room during my cousin's final moments, they could. I found out later that neither of these guys did that for my family.

After the tube was out, my aunt & uncle and I went back into the room as well as the 2 men from the church & my cousin's dad. We sat and watched her and talked to her, held her hand and cried because we knew she was about to be taken from us. My aunt had her face buried in my cousin's chest and her husband held her tight. It was at that moment that my cousin opened her eyes, looked around the room and then found me. She stared at me. Tears welled up in her eyes... and then she was gone.