Chances are, if you have siblings, then you’ve been in a situation where you’ve felt like there’s nothing that you can do to help. It’s an awful feeling that you wish would just go away and never come back. Unfortunately, it’s a feeling that I know very well.
My brother, Matt, was diagnosed with a lung proficiency disease and a severe immune deficiency on September 28, 2005.
My brother is only one year, three months and seventeen days older than me. He was 10 years old when he was diagnosed. Being that I was only 9 years old, I didn’t really know what was going on and I didn’t really understand what was wrong with him. All I knew is that it wasn’t normal and that it was hurting my brother.
I remember seeing my parents cry for the very first time when they brought my brother home from the doctor that day. I was so confused. I just thought that Matt had something like a cold. I thought he would simply be sick for a week or two and then he’d be fine. Then my parents explained to me and my brothers that it was something way more serious.
As I started to get older, I started to begin to understand more about what was going on. It suddenly became real. Matt was really sick and it seemed as if there was nothing that I, or anyone else in my family, could do about it.
All I wanted to do was to make him better. I wanted to do anything to make it all go away, to make it so he wasn’t sick anymore, but I couldn‘t. It felt like all I could do was sit back and pray that some doctor somewhere in the world would come up with some type of medicine to make him all better.
After he was diagnosed, we began drift apart a bit. I constantly felt like there was nothing that I could do to help him. I felt like I had failed him in some way. He had always been there for me ever since we were little. When I would get hurt, he would do anything in his power to make me feel better, and I felt like there was nothing that I could do to make him feel better.
Then I began to think about what he would do if we had switched situations. I realized that he would just do anything in his power to just make me laugh. He would do anything to take my mind off of everything, even if it were only for a second. From that moment on, I was determined to just keep him laughing. To this day, my mission is to just keep a smile on my brothers face.
I guess that what I’m trying to say is that, although there was nothing I could do to cure Matt, I found out that just keeping him laughing and smiling helped. Our family has never been closer or stronger. Yeah, it’s been tough on all of us, Matt especially, but we get through it. We’re always playing games together, laughing, and just having fun. We are always there for each other and we truly cherish the meaning of family.
Matt’s health condition has improved a lot since he was first diagnosed, but this is something that he will live with for the rest of his life. I must say though, that despite everything he’s been through, Matt is the strongest person I’ve ever met. If you were to just meet him randomly on the street and have a conversation with him, you would have no idea that he was sick. He doesn’t let it control his life or bring him down, he just goes on like nothings wrong. I admire him so much for that.
So if you ever have that feeling like there’s nothing you can do, just be there for that person. As long as they know that you’ll have their back, you’re helping them.
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