I Couldn't Even Stop It...

We were up in Washington for a big family event. Most of my siblings, many of my cousins, quite a few uncles and aunts. We rented out the entire hotel. Ash and I were sharing a room.

Ash had a hole in her lung because of our biologial father stabbing her, so she had to do breathing treatments twice a day to make sure fluid stayed out of her lungs - once about an hour after she woke up and once during the night, around midnight.

After we had been there a couple of nights, Ash started to act a little abnormal. She kept telling people how much she appreciated them (quite a bit more than normal) and she kept hugging me and spent almost every waking moment with me.

We went to sleep that night as usual, and around midnight Ash's alarm went off to do her breathing treatment. I sat up and waited for her to be done and then laid back down and went to sleep.

Around one o'clock I heard these awful sounds coming from the other side of the room. But I was too tired to try to figure out what it was. About two o'clock and I woke up again, and again I could hear these awful sounds. Three o'clock came and the awful sounds were so loud that I couldn't take it anymore. I got out of bed and stumbled to the other side of the room.

I found Ash on the floor, completely black and blue and very swollen.

I screamed and ran out of the room, down the hall, to our aunt's room. I banged and kicked on the door, screaming as loud as I could. I was crying so hard that when she opened the door she couldn't understand a word I was saying.

I managed to get her back to my room. She called 911 and within 4 minutes they were there, loading her into the back of the vehicle. I rode with her to the hospital.

When we got there the doctors tried prying me away from her but they couldn't get me to calm down. My aunt begged them to let me go with Ash because she knew I wouldn't be okay without her.

They went into immediate surgery. Both of her lungs had collasped.

I held her hand the entire time.

Three hours later, she was hooked up to a life machine. All I can remember doing is lying next to her and sobbing "don't leave me, please. don't leave me."

No one else was allowed in the room because of her condition.

The doctors kept telling me that she just needed to get through this little bit and then she would be fine. But two hours later, she was slipping away.

They pronounced her dead at 11:03 am on February 10, 2005.

To be continued...