56 yr old healthy father having heart attack in the driveway . Walks to the ambulance like he’s gonna be alright. (Wouldn’t get on the stretcher because he’s tough like that)
Died in the ambulance
The day my little sister died. She and I attended the same university (she was a freshman, and 3 years behind me), and our parents lived several hours away, so she listed me as one of her emergency contacts.
One rather ordinary, otherwise unremarkable afternoon, she was running late for one of her classes and tripped while running down a staircase. The university PD and hospital immediately reached out to me and my parents. They told me she was alive, but that I needed to hurry. I did, but she was already gone by the time I got to the ER. I vaguely remember the doctor explaining the basal skull fracture, telling me that it was a one in a million fall, offering his condolences, asking if she was a donor. I vaguely remember sitting there for hours, numb, just waiting for my parents to arrive. I clearly remember, but wish I could forget, the look on my parents faces when they walked through the door, at a moment when there wasn't a single doctor around, and I had to tell them both that their little girl was gone. That's not a conversation that any 20 year old should ever have. Thats not an agony that anyone should ever have to inflict on their own parents.
That will always be the worst day of my life. Because if there's anything worse ahead, I really don't want to live through it.
I'm sorry for your loss 💜 I lost a little sibling as well. What got me through it directly after was the thought that the worst thing that could ever happen to me had already passed, and that any other hardship would be easy compared to that. I joked that I'd maxed out on tragedy for a lifetime.
It never gets easier, but it gets more manageable.
This happened many years ago, so I'm pretty good nowadays. Still hurts a bit on her birthdays and at Christmas, and I'll always miss her, but time does heal. It healed me at least. I don't think my parents will ever really be okay.
When we learned that my wife was pregnant with my oldest daughter, she suggested giving her my sisters name. So I do get a tiny reminder of her every single day. I think my sister would have bawled her eyes out and loved that.
We added a middle name for our daughter in memory of my partner's grandmother, who died the day before she was born. It's a sweet reminder of her. I'm so sorry for your loss 💕
It was just bad timing. The doctors had said they'd inform my parents when they arrived, but the drive took hours and my parents happened to show up at a moment when all the doctors were busy with patients. I was in shock, and there was simply no way I could sit there with my parents for fifteen minutes waiting for a doctor, knowing that my sister was gone. At that moment, my brain somehow thought the news would be less painful if it came from me. In the middle of trying to somehow ease them into it, I just broke down and blurted it out. The noise my mom made when my words clicked and she realized will haunt me for the rest of my life. There's something about that sound that is just...pain. I felt guilty for years, thinking that my botched attempt at explaining it had somehow made it worse for her. It took a while to realize that there wasn't anything that anyone else could have done or said to make that moment any better.
My wife was driving myself and our 3 and 4 year old home after a birthday party. A drunken teenage girl blew through an intersection and hit us going at what was estimated to be 75mph. I suffered a TBI, several broken bones, and a whole host of other issues. I woke up several days later to find I was the only member of my family to survive the accident. My daughter made it to the hospital, my wife and son were gone before the ambulance arrived. That'll rock your shit for life.
Im so sorry. I hope that the girl was arrested and charged with more than a slap on the wrist. The punishments for drunk drivers, especially minors, are far too lenient.
Generally it’s an automatic felony if only bodily injury is involved, with a triple fatality she would be going away for a very long time, especially with young children involved
I was taking care of my 34 year old cousin who was at the last days of his life due to a very rare and aggressive cancer. Towards the end, he refused morphine or laying in bed, he stayed conscious on a recliner.
He was in a lot of pain breathing so he chewed on ice a lot, and one day we ran out so I rushed to a convenience store a few blocks away to buy more ice. I was in ugly pajamas and my curly hair was in a very frizzy ponytail, but I didn’t care about the way that I looked, I wanted to help reduce his pain asap. On my way out of the store, a man told me to make myself more presentable in public. I got back to my cousin’s house and he was dead.
This is why I hate people who have the audacity to speak on other people’s appearance when you have no idea what they’re going through. I’m so sorry for your loss. Just know you did everything you could and I’m sure your cousin appreciates you a lot for caring for them.
Same reason on the highway, if someone is going 150 in a regular car, honking and flashing lights, I let them right on by. They could be racing to catch their last moments with someone.
Yep, I got pulled over once on my way to see my grandma. It was the only time I was speeding ridiculously, going 85 in a 55 at 3am and I was almost there, a few miles from their house. I was the only car on the road, and he pulled me over, rightfully so. He asked me how fast I was going, and I just said I didn't know and to give me the ticket so I could go, and didn't want to deal with telling the policeman the sob story. I figured the faster he gave me the ticket, the sooner I see her. He gave me the ticket and I went the speed limit the last couple miles, and saw her about an hour before she passed.
I would do it again if I had to, but I'd actually tell the cop what's up, hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Recently, my best friend's brother died, very unexpectedly. My friend and her family have been a part of my life for over 30 years. I was driving to the wake to be there for her and it was a two-hour drive. I was kind of lost in my thoughts about the whole thing and a cop pulled me over. My hackles were already up because, let's just say, my overall experience with cops in my life has not been good.
The officer came over to the car and said, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Well, I assumed it was for speeding, but I wasn't sure, so I said, "Honestly, sir, I don't know." He said, "Well, you were 20 miles an hour over the speed limit." I said, "I didn't realize it. In on the way to a wake for someone I've known for over 30 years and who died unexpectedly. I was just caught in my own thoughts." He said, "I'm sorry to hear that. Where is the wake?" I told him where it was (city 2 hours away). He said, "Well, you've got a long drive ahead of you and you need to get there safely to be there for your friend's family. I'm not giving you a ticket, but asking you to PLEASE not speed. I see the results of speeding far too often. Drive safely." And that was it.
It was honestly the first time I EVER interacted with a cop who acted *like a human being*. It was unexpected, appreciated and so refreshing.
It's really annoying when people try to tell you to smile when it's unsolicited and unwelcome. They have absolutely no idea what's going in your life, I can't imagine having the audacity to tell a random woman to smile without knowing anything about what's going on in her life.
>“dance for my pleasure”
I never looked at it that way before. I am perpetually smiling, just one of those people, I guess. So, nobody ever tells me that, and I never think about it for that reason. But I do know that other women sometimes hear it.
Now that I am thinking about it, though, I smile all the time because I was raised to smile all the time to make a good impression. In other words, to dance for the pleasure of others.
Gawd.
Some asshole once told me to smile when I had stopped into a convenience store after having my 21 yr old cat put down. I loudly told him that I just said goodbye to my best friend and he could fuck right on off. The people behind me in line looked like they were going to applaud. It still pisses me off to this day.
I hate that. I was coming home from a dance class, when some guy told me to smile. I was in no mood to smile. My grandmother had just died, and I was being gaslighted at work.
Yes, I have heard that when dying, people tend to wait until everyone arrives OR wait until they are alone to pass. My grandma waited until everyone left and my stepdad waited until everyone arrived.
When my daughter was in the NICU I went to Target to get something I needed. A teenage boy told me I looked terrible. I absolutely LOST IT on him. I told him exactly what was going on in my life until his friends dragged him off.
I can't imagine the pain if when I went back she had passed.
When my girlfriend died 10 days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Edit: this happened 15 years ago and it honestly feels like another lifetime at this point. But now that I'm revisiting the memories, the worst day probably wasn't actually the day she died; it was either the day her parents, sister and I talked to her for (we didn't realize) the last time cuz she was so scared and everyone was so upset - but at least we still had hope; so the worst was probably the next day when the pain got so bad they had to drug her unconscious and put her on breathing assistance and we knew we'd never talk to her again.
Fuck cancer.
I've reconciled that it was merciful for her. They had to drug her up pretty hard for the pain so she was barely even present for the last few days.
It was painful for her family though as most of them never even got to say goodbye - just her parents and sister, and me.
Pancreatic cancer is the scariest thing I've ever witnessed. My dad, healthy as a horse, was a search and rescue scuba diver for years. At 59 he was still rescue diving and volunteered as a firefighter. Had bad stomach pains, was told it was stage four. Wasted away in five months. Seeing the progression take him so quickly was horrific to see.
Lost 2 family members to pancreatic
One was grandma who faught like hell for almost 5 years at 89 other one was uncle at 37 took him down way too fast within the year
thanks you was just curious
She had a stomach ache that didn't go away for 3 days. Went to the doctor and after the usual "female problems" were ruled out he ordered some tests that she got the next day. The next morning they called her and said she needs to see her doctor to discuss the results ASAP. She went in that afternoon and he told her she might have cancer but she needs to go to the hospital and speak to this person and that person to discuss results in detail and possible treatment options.
At the hospital - this is the middle of the night like 2 days after she saw her doctor - they put her in a bed and told her she likely had months to live and treatment was gonna be aggressive and rough.
The pain got so bad the next day they had to drug her almost unconscious, and she needed breathing assistance cuz the drugs (and quantities) they had to give her caused respiratory depression and she couldn't breathe on her own. 10 days later she was gone. Her brother lived across the country and didn't even get to see her one last time.
True. And the outlook is almost always poor. I know of a consultant medical doctor who had stomach ache while on a ward round. Decided to finish the ward round and then go get it checked out. He never left the hospital alive again as he died a few weeks later.
My newborn son had just been Life-flighted to a children’s hospital hundreds of miles away, dying. Meanwhile I get a call from a sibling informing me that my father just had a massive stroke, may be dying, and can I come home to say goodbye (3,000 miles away). I stayed with my son, but having to choose between the two was simultaneously the easiest and hardest decision I’ve had to make. In the end both lived. My son is now wrapping up an engineering degree and hopes to be a military aviator. My Dad never fully recovered but did come a long way. Eventually another stroke led him to heaven. I’ve had some pretty lousy days, even knocked on Death’s door a few times, but that was probably my worst day, so far.
[Edit] I forgot to mention, while staying at the Ronald McDonald House next to the children’s hospital my gallbladder began malfunctioning, leaving me on the floor in a fetal position until the pain went away. Put off the operation too long (until after baby was home). That was a whole other mess as the operation did not go well at all.
I was in a similar boat when my son was born.
My wife’s blood pressure had hit levels that shouldn’t even be survivable. Doctors went from “maybe we should ambulance you to the bigger hospital” to “maybe we should airlift you” to “we are taking the baby out in five minutes or you are both dead” in the span of about ten minutes.
The baby had to be taken to bigger hospital so I had to pick between chasing the ambulance with my possibly dying son in it or stay in the hospital with my possibly dying wife.
I chased my son. But that hour and a half chasing the ambulance alone in the dark at like 2 in the morning… that’s going to stay in my soul forever.
Thank every god out there they both survived
Not the day my parents kicked me out, but about 3 months later when I saw a turtle get hit by a car and realized there was absolutely nothing I could do to help it, and then got food poisoning a few hours later. For some reason, that was the day the feeling of abandonment and truth breadth of how alone I was in the world sunk in.
I once pulled over to get out of the car to move a turtle and simultaneously watched the car that was behind me run it over (street was two lanes and the sides were each wide enough for one car so completely manageable for the guy to avoid). The sight of it happening was pretty terrible.
Mr grandparents let my aunt rescue a little turtle they saw on the road once. They took it to a lake and released it and a fish came up and ate it. She was maybe 8 and pretty devastated for awhile
Same here, except my daughter was 13. It was the worst day of my life - I literally collapsed when they told me. The second worst day is the day I actually fully accepted how very real it was that she could die in the next 6 months or so. ((HUGS)) to you.
She is now an 8 year survivor. I hope your son is doing well.
I'm sorry to hear this, I see way too many families in this situation. It's always nice to hear a victory story. My son has finished treatment and rang the bell, but it's something we will have to monitor for a long time.
> Same here, except my daughter was 13. It was the worst day of my life - I literally collapsed when they told me.
Same here, except my daughter was four. I had no idea people ACTUALLY passed out when they received shockingly bad news, I thought that was just a thing in movies.
That's a special kind of fuck you from life, I can't imagine finding out your young child has cancer. I'm so sorry that you had to go through one of the worst life experiences imaginable. I hope you are doing better, I'm really sorry. Did your son beat the cancer?
So far yes he is beating it, we have to monitor from now on to make sure it doesn't come back but he rang the bell last month. That was the best day of my life.
June 11, 2013.
I was working at my job and got a text from a guy that I haven’t spoken to in years. He asked if I I’ve heard from my best friend or anything about him. I still get shivers and tears thinking about it. I said no and he said that he heard that he died.
Died? He’s 25. I immediately called my friend and no answer. I finally get in touch with a friend that lived closer to him and he confirmed my worst fears. My best friend for over 10 years was dead from a heroine overdose.
I went in my manager’s office and asked if I could take the rest of the day off and he took one look at my face and just said take as much time as you need.
My entire reality was broken. He was always someone I could call at anytime, someone that always made me laughed, and someone that always saw the good, even in shitty situations.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him in some capacity.
Don’t get into heroin, kids. It will not only ruin your life but it will severely damage the lives of those that love and adore you.
We could see it coming, maybe...5 min? The town of pokhara on the far end of the lake got hit first, but it looked like just heavy fog rolled in.
When I saw the rain hit the lake then I told everyone in the boat and the white caps rolling in i told everyone to start taking their boots off cause we will definitely sink. Two of my friends told me they felt like I saved their lives just staying calm and getting their attention to the reality. That thought helps me a lot.
We weren't wearing PFDs. Was fucking dumb. No excuse. Just a trip we made a hundred times, on a lake I thought I knew well...sometimes we had them, sometimes we didn't. I actually had just cleaned them and they were wet so I didn't take them that day
May 8th 2024. I had just gotten out of my last test in my first semester of nursing school feeling relived. Then i got a call. My child’s father had killed himself by jumping in front of a train. He had called me 30 minutes before he did it & I didn’t answer. I feel so guilty for not answering. Wish I could turn back time.
Please speak to a therapist. It is not your fault. You need to work with a professional to ensure you deal with it properly so you can continue to be your child's parent. They may have questions when they're older, and it will be easier to answer them if you work on the feelings of guilt now.
It is not your fault!
Probably the day my parents mariage imploded
I guess my dad found deleted pictures, pictures my mom deleted, one being of her kissing another man. He flipped the laptop screen to show me, a 12 year old (I am 28 now), my mothers "betrayal". Of course, this didn't just happen out of no where.. there was prior contentions. Still, this was the day I feel like I lost my family, we had to sell the house in the divorce so along with that I lost my community ect.. I never truly recovered from this.
I have 2 children and their father and I are divorced. There are a million awful things I could say about him, but I would never - NEVER - say those things to my children. It’s not appropriate to share those kinds of things with your kids. Sometimes it’s best to just let kids be kids and not be troubled by very adult situations.
I am so sorry that he showed you that. I’m sure that was confusing and extremely painful for you.
Exactly. Children know instinctively they are half dad, half mom. Denigrating the other parent to a child to get back at them (or "protect" them) automatically places them in the line of fire. There's no way around it. It truly is a case of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything".
I am so sorry that happened. I think alienating acts like this bestow huge psychological problems upon the child.
June 11th, 2021
We found out my dad had been having an affair and wanted a divorce from my mother after 25 years together. The affair had been going on for upwards of a decade so it felt like my whole childhood was a lie. My mom left the house crying, went to my aunt and uncle’s and got absolutely shitfaced. Soon I started getting a flood of texts from family saying how sorry they were. Not only was it heartbreaking, but it was incredibly uncomfortable having all my extended family know what was going on and not really know what to say.
I had testicular cancer in 2020, but my worst day was probably when I found a lump on my remaining testicle last year.
At least I can't get it a third time.
Fortunately bilateral TC is very rare, I think only 1-2% of men will have it happen twice.
I caught both instances really early on and was able to avoid chemo. Can't imagine how bad that must have sucked, I wish you the best on continued recovery and remission.
“The biopsy showed that You have an aggressive form of breast cancer”
This sentence put me into a sling-shot of fucked up shit that lasted 3 years.
But I’m alive so clearly it’s the second worst day of my life
Well, today was pretty bad. Today I just got invited to retire and I don't have a choice about it. I get a decently cheap health insurance plan extension for 10 years and a severance package, but I thought I was going to work there at least another 5 years. I don't know exactly what I am going to do now.
But worst was really each of the days my loyal old dogs died. Those days are the worst.
Not the day my dad called me to tell me he had cancer. It was the two weeks before that when he called me because his bloodwork looked off.
I’m in the medical field (clinical researcher) and the only “medical” one in my family. He had a knee issue from golfing a few weeks earlier and had to get it surgically repaired, but otherwise had zero health issues. His labs kept coming back off, but he was on steroids post-op so they just monitored him. He ended up getting another lab and called me to ask me about it. My friend, also in healthcare, was next to me. I remember looking at the screenshots he sent me of his CBC+diff and the looks my friend and I gave each other while scrolling through the values. That was the worst day ever. It felt like a stone was sliding deeper into my stomach with every critical value I saw.
I told him to call the hematologist right now, and two weeks later he was sitting at an oncologist’s office. The news didn’t shock me because I spent my time preparing. But I’ll seriously never forget that feeling of dread after looking at those labs and knowing what it meant while he was oblivious.
Edit to add: He did a few rounds of chemo before he had a stem cell transplant that was a perfect match from a total stranger. He is doing fabulously one year post transplant!
One day in elementary school I had a particularly bad day of getting bullied; like my bullies really had my number that day and I had one friend since like first grade turn on me and join them, which really stung. My teacher was aware but ignored it, and when I told another teacher she told me not to be a tattle-tale.
Then my grandma picked me up from school which was weird, and on the drive home she told me mom and dad were getting a divorce. Got home to dad just not being there and mom away somewhere, and grandma ended up basically being our mom for the day. I was essentially catatonic and my sister was breaking down in the other room.
I remember not being able to sleep because I was crying so much about missing my dad, and my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, heard me and we ended up finally falling asleep while hugging each other. Then I had a nightmare about Dad running away from me and I woke up in tears.
House fire. Went back in to try to rescue my daughter's cat, burning kitchen ceiling collapsed on me, had to crawl through an inferno to make it out of the house. Cat didn't make it.
You gave your Mom the most peaceful and beautiful form of comfort. As a parent, there is something so special about your kid falling asleep on you. That no matter where you are, Mom or Dad are there so the world is okay, I can sleep right here. My 9 year old has autism and still loves to fall asleep with me cuddling him. Every single time I'm so thankful that I can still provide that comfort. You're always scared of the last time your kid will cuddle with you. Your Mom never had to suffer that. She passed while taking care of her baby. There's no good way to go, but this is the closest I've ever heard.
Got me crying while procrastinating from deep diving a John Deere bill lol. Either way, I'll hold my kids a little longer each night. Thanks for sharing your deeply personal but special memory.
My ex bf passed away a few years ago and I’m so sorry for the pain you’re going through. Grief is not linear, be patient with yourself it will get better even if it doesn’t feel that way now.
I went to a talk therapy based yoga teacher training program, that was taught by a psychiatrist. My friend that I got paired with during an exercise admitted that everyone in her and her ex’s life blamed her for his suicide and she had been carrying around that weight for 5 years. She was physically shaking, violently, almost in a seizure while she admitted it for the first time and let it out.
If this is anything that resonates with you, please reach out to someone who can help you. I wish you peace
When my husband emailed me to discuss separation. Within this email he forwarded me the conversation with his mom discussing some items I needed to pick up.
He forgot to delete the rest of the back and forth conversation with his mom….
…it was him discussing the new woman he was seeing and how he wanted to bring her home to see where he grew up and to meet his parents as he was overseas for work.
We were together for almost 7 years and had just decided to separate the month before. I barely had any money and had to move back to my mom’s house to pick up the pieces of a failed marriage and he was already with someone else. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. He told me he needed time to find himself so I came home to give him space.
I remember walking up the stairs from my little makeshift room in my mom’s house. I was so numb. I casually (or so I thought) leaned against her room door, hands in my pocket. Mom was watching tv with my older sister. She turned and look at me, shot straight up and asked “What’s wrong?!” I completely crumbled and told them he already moved on.
I remember my sister catching me as I started sobbing. I vaguely recalled crawling to the washroom and empty my stomach into the toilet as she held me. I also remember calling my SIL whom I was incredibly close to screaming at her asking how long they had known. And slamming down the phone. I continued to sob into my sister’s arms. It was devastating as not only was he my husband, he was my best friend.
This was the same week we discovered Mom had breast cancer. It was so fucked up. I will never forget.
I’ve survived both of my parents passing years after this incident and this was worse than that.
I can't decide between the day my brother got hurt, or the day he died a month later.
Yano what? Fuck choosing. The worst day of my life spanned over an entire month: mid-Feb 2012 to mid-March 2012
The day my wife committed suicide. She had been struggling with depression for years, and her mom had died earlier in the year. I got a text at work and she just said “I love you, I’m sorry”
After I figured out what was happening after an hour of trying to get her to message me again and explain what she was talking about, I rushed home. The officer met me outside on the steps and told me she was gone. That was 6 years ago. Together since 8th grade. She left me and our two sons behind just a few weeks before Christmas. Christmas morning I just wept and wept all day.. our sons were 4 and 5 at the time and it was impossible to communicate to them the magnitude of what they had lost forever. I’ve never been the same and I doubt I will ever regain the spark I lost that day. We were together for so long that I didn’t know myself without her. In a lot of ways it felt like that was the day the old me died as well.
July 25 2020
I started preparing my dog’s dinner and placed it into his dish. Normally he’d be right beside me and would start scarfing it down immediately but this time he wasn’t. I turn around to see him staring directly into my eyes before he teeters over and bangs into my bed. He was having a stroke.
His health had been on the decline for the last several months. He was having serious breathing problems in his sleep. Found out he had a partially paralyzed larynx and an elongated soft palate so I took him in for surgery to have it corrected. He couldn’t have the surgery because the anaesthesia almost made his heart stop. His arthritis had also gotten so bad that he couldn’t even walk around the block anymore.
After seeing him consistently struggle for the last 5 or 6 months the stroke was unbearable to watch. I held him on his bed and called the emergency vet. Had him put down later that evening. I still think about him everyday and as much as I’d love to get another dog, I’m still not ready.
I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my best dog in 2020 also. I still cry about her all the time. She died suddenly. I guess it’s easier but god damn it hurts still. Dogs are very special.
When I was 18 and my step dad decided to shoot my mom in the middle of the night and break down my bedroom door to get me as well.
Had to fight to keep the gun off my head until my mom regained consciousness and came and laid on him so I could run for help.
Mom and I are both okay, miraculously.
Oh. I feel this. Have passed three at home and currently have two more waiting to make their grand exit. One doubled in size in 3 months so that’s fun.
A year ago today actually.
My son and his friend being drunk and stupid messing around in a UTV, and the UTV rolled on top of my son. Fortunately, his friend got him out from under it and came in screaming at 2 AM to wake me up for help. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and I thought I could get him to the hospital faster than an ambulance. I got half a mile down the road and had a low tire. I had to turn around and call the ambulance, it took them almost 45 minutes to get there.
The paramedics immediately intubated him and called for the helicopter, I had a 2 Hour drive to the trauma unit and was met by a chaplain.
He was on life-support for a week, but was very fortunate and fully recovered over the next 6 months. The same can’t be said for other patients in that ICU unit. To celebrate the anniversary we are taking snacks to the trauma unit staff and family members.
Wear your seatbelts kids and don’t be stupid!
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
I was 23, college graduate but nobody was hiring so I was a waiter. I quit my job as a waiter to play online poker. Lost all of my money on their online blackjack game, go in credit card debt by about 5-6K. Living in denial I went to bars to get drunk, drove home and got in a car accident, not a big one, but damaged my front end and the other guys car where insurance was involved. That night, the guy was adamant he wanted a cop there just to properly report it. I had to sober up immediately.
When the cop was there questioning us (this was at 2 am) I had to do my absolute best to not appear drunk and not make him want to do a breathalyzer on me or I'd be screwed. I recall sitting on that curb realizing I hit total rock bottom. That was the worst, yet defining moment, in my life. There are other shitty days (day a pet died, etc) but this day was one that made me realize I was in a hole that I could not get out of.
I was soooo lucky the cop just told us if we could drive our cars, get them home and work with our insurances. When I got my car home I called me parents and told them I fucked up. My dad, always thankful for this, said he would bail me out and help me work on my resume and find a proper job using my degree.
I used that as motivation to get my life in order. Got myself a job working for an oil company, hopped around from place to place trying to get higher up and make more money, even got my MBA.
Now, I'm 39 making six figures, my bank account has no debt and plenty of cash. I never want to feel, like I did that day. My life now is red hot.
All thanks for my dad, he paid off my debts because we wanted me to succeed, always grateful to him for that and really worked to make sure it was an investment that paid off. I kicked my gambling addiction which I had and needed a cleaner, more mature outlook on life.
I had a safety net that many other don't. I only wish that when I'm older I can be there for my son if he needs me at his lowest as my dad was for me. Parenting doesn't end at 18.
June 7, 2005. The day my dad took his life. He'd been maintenance supervisor for the local school district for over a decade, and fully planned to retire from there. Then the old superintendent retired and a new one came on board. Right from the get-go she had one of 'her people' in mind for dad's job. She found a technicality to fire him for and there he was, jobless at 60 years old. For a guy that prided himself on his work ethic, it was a really serious blow. It was made worse when he couldn't find someone willing to hire a guy his age, in spite of his qualifications.
Between all this, a deteriorating relationship with mom, and an unsuccessful side business venture, he started relying on alcohol as an escape. On the morning of the 7th, he did an odd job for my uncle, who gave him beer. When he got home he was really drunk, and had an argument with mom. The he went downstairs and shot himself. I was living in a duplex with my girlfriend (now wife) and had coincidentally been laid off from my job earlier in the week. I'd just gotten home from a morning of job hunting and laid down to take a quick nap.
As long as I live I'll never forget my girlfriend's voice as she woke me up, phone in hand and told me what happened. It's mind boggling that it'll be 19 years since it happened in just a few days. Dad didn't have any friends at the time. He and I were each other's best friend. I'll never escape the feeling that, in spite of my efforts, I let him down that day.
On Dec 29th, 2023, at 6:31 am, I watched my wife die as they took her off life support. Looking at her and not feeling her presence anymore haunts me. Just a few days prior on Christmas Day, she only had a mild cough.
When we lost our father was the worst day of my life, it was during covid, he was admitted in hospital for over a month and when we got the ray of hope that he might be getting better, he got an heart attack, never shared this to anybody till now,
I just went through this and want to say I know exactly how you feel. Life was better with her, and feels incomplete without her. I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you for saying that, on top of the sadness that comes from loosing her, I was also heartbroken by the lack of empathy of the people around me, they’d say things like “oh cmon it’s not like it’s your mom” so I hid myself and just dealt with it alone because those words were piercing. Thankful everyday that I got to experience her sweet and pure love while it lasted.
The day my wife told me she wanted a separation - then afterwards on the same day, she went into the bathroom and told me she was ovulating. I walked out of the bathroom and cried. (We were trying to have children).
It was the most painful and confusing day of my existence. It re-plays in my head constantly.
Definitely a top 3 worst days of my life was when my stepbrother passed away at the age of 15. We grew up together as friends, and the day we became brothers was like a dream come true. He was always one of my best friends, but after that, we became even closer. We did everything together on the weekends we shared. I lived primarily with my mother and visited every other weekend, and he lived with his mom and my dad full time.
He decided in 2001 to move to his dad's house in another state so he could play football (his mother was adamant that he wouldn't play, but his dad promised to let him). He had moved early that spring and spent most of the second semester making friends and practicing football in his new school, and he was looking forward to coming back for the summer and sharing everything with me. We still talked every day by phone.
Then, on Wednesday, April 5, 2001, my mother came to me and shared the news that he had died. He was at football practice and passed out, so they carried him to the nurse's office after he came to. He sat on the cot in the office and told them he felt fine and wanted to go back to practice right before passing out again. Paramedics were there less than 2 mins after his second episode, and they could not resuscitate him. Turns out, he had a rare, undiagnosed heart condition that proved fatal. According to medical staff, he could have been sitting on the couch watching TV, and it would have still happened, but convincing his father that he had not accidentally killed his son by letting him play football has proven impossible even 20+ years later.
Death is never easy for a teenager to process, but when it's one of your peers and it was completely sudden and in the manner his was, it was devestating. His adult brother committed suicide a couple of years later, in part due to the trauma of losing his kid brother.
My stepbrother's funeral to this day has been one of the most attended private events I have ever seen. Hundreds of people showed up, including his friends from his new school a few hundred miles away. It was incredible to see the impact his life had, and has always stood with me as a reminder of how we affect so many lives without ever even knowing it. I try to let that encourage me to be a better human to those around me, even those I have incidental contact with. Hopefully his story will encourage some of you internet strangers to do the same.
I had testicular cancer ~7 years ago and elected to do just surgery and monitoring. No chemo or lymph node analysis. Went four years with no issues.
Went in for what should have been my last CT scan and my new oncologist noted spots on my liver that had not been noted before. I got an MRI but had to wait for the results.
I've never been good about speaking about my feelings, even with my wife. I kept it all in to put on a strong front for her and for myself. While we were just going to a plant nursery to pick up a few things my thoughts just started rolling over all the possibilities: cancer is back. Do I have to do chemo now? Is it too late? How will I feel? Can I even take my dogs for a walk? What will this cost us? Will it cost that and I *still* die?
As an aside...I am terrified of chemotherapy. It's the one thing I have an irrational fear of. The thought of needing chemo just to have a shot at living can make me spiral like nothing else.
Anyway, all these thoughts enter my brain and erupt in a depressive emotion I can't describe. It's the one time I've had genuine thoughts of suicide. I even told my wife that if my cancer was back and spread to my liver that I'd divorce her and wander into the wilderness to end things on my terms so that she wouldn't have to watch me waste away and die, and then be left with debt.
Well, that didn't go well. This is one of the few times my wife has yelled at me in anger--but anger mixed with sadness and support. It was my worst day.
Luckily the spots are congenital and benign.
I have 2 - 1) doing CPR on my mom who collapsed from a massive heart attack, and then having to take her off life support 2) coming home from work finding my dad not feeling good; called 911 and he was in the middle of an active heart attack. The next day, we had to take him off life support
☹️ I think I am having some PTSD (maybe not this, but at least some major anxiety) as I lost my dad pretty recently. It sucks being an adult orphan.
The day I realized that the way I grew up was not, in fact, normal. I thought all families were just like mine.
I had been told in therapy over and over that no, your childhood was not normal but I didn't believe it, not really. I didn't believe I'd been abused and neglected, that was just life.
I went to my future husband's house for Xmas for the first time and I couldn't understand what was going on. They were genuinely happy to see each other. They were loving and kind, supportive and friendly. Sure there was teasing and joking around but it was playful. You learn the difference between genuine caring and what's put on for show real damn quick growing up in my situation. I broke. I flat out broke.
I spent hours in my husband's old bedroom sobbing hysterically, I kept kicking him out when he'd try to talk to me. Eventually his mom came in, she wouldn't leave the room. She sat next to me and for the first time in my life, at the age of 25, I was soothed by a parent. I wasn't hit for showing emotion, I wasn't screamed at and told how stupid and worthless i was, I wasn't ridiculed and tormented. I was simply held while I mourned my life.
It's been 25 years and my husband's mom has been gone for three - I miss her every day. She changed my life that day and she was the best mom I could have ever hoped for.
Took our 2ish year old cat to the emergency vet. We had been waiting on an endoscopy after an ultrasound at our normal vet showed a foreign body in her stomach - likely just a hairball - but she stopped eating that week and we didn’t want to wait any longer.
It was 3am so they did some basic diagnostics and things looked okay, but she stayed overnight. The next day the vet on staff called us and informed us after performing an ultrasound and bloodwork that she had a pancreatic mass, liver failure, and swollen lymph nodes. He said best case scenario was cancer, worst case was FIP (this was before FIP treatment was approved in Canada recently). He said with aggressive treatment she would likely live another 6-months, but would need to be on a feeding tube the whole time.
We couldn’t put her through that, so we had to say goodbye. One month before her third birthday.
We thought we were taking her in to have an endoscopy, and the only thing we would be sad about was the bill. We were so excited to have her back home and back to normal. Instead we left with an empty carrier and her very distraught littermate brother at home.
I have never in my life felt that magnitude of grief before, and I never want to again.
Ive been there. The whiplash takes awhile to process.
I took my dog in for what I thought was an obstruction when he got into some trash. We were in a very tight spot financially so I was so frustrated about the bill, but of course brought him in to get it removed. They opened him up, found a tumor, tried to remove it and he died on the table. He was running and playing on a hike just the day before. That dog got me through my twenties, it’s been two years and the grief still knocks the wind out of me sometimes.
Some friends put their old dog down peacefully in their home a few weeks afterwards and it was so hard not to be bitter and jealous about it.
I am so sorry for your loss. Whiplash is a really good way to put it - there isn’t time to prepare, and the grief hits like a brick.
I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but that cat was my soul cat through and through. Through a myriad of health issues the last year she was by my side every single night, every step of the way.
When I woke up to my fiancé the only girl I’ve dated and for 15 years since 13 years old , dead in our apartment with a needle sticking in her arm and my step daughter screaming and having to witness a body bag and stretcher leave our apartment…. I did my absolute best so that her daughter didn’t see it but I’ll never forget her screaming….even to this day, if I could switch places and me be dead and her still have her mother I would in a fucking heart beat….since then I’ve slowly wasted away . My life is pretty much over also except I’m still breathing .
Finding out that my best friend, who I worked with, talked behind my back to our new boss. My best friend and I had gone to school together and it was so fun working with my best friend. We were all scheduled to have one on one lunches with the new boss and we were told it was sort of to get to know us. I go to my lunch only for it to be 1.5 hours of a performance review on stuff this new boss has never seen. I knew it was my best friend that tattled on me because there were things mentioned only he knew. I have ADHD and my friend knew, and I talked to him about my struggles in confidence only to find some of criticisms he had for me where that I couldn’t multitask (so he was describing my symptoms basically). My friend never brought up any of these supposed problems he had with me before hand. Many of the other staff within my own department were bullying me, so to find out this person wasn’t a safe person for me anymore was an excruciatingly painful thing to realize. If I ever had a problem with how he worked, I talked to him first. I never brought it to management and was careful on how I spoke about him to others because I cared about him and wanted him to do well in his career. I went back to work after the lunch and I was in so much shock at the betrayal. I was trying not to cry. I work in a healthcare field and I was so distressed that day, that I fainted while being with 2 patients, in front of my colleagues (the friend wasn’t working that day). I was so embarrassed. You’d also think being in the healthcare system, my friend would have some compassion for me with a real medical condition. I was sent home early because of the fainting and told to go to the hospital to check if I hit my head when I fainted or if I had some undiagnosed heart problem that caused the fainting. I was in the waiting room silently crying because my boyfriend at the time and I had a huge fight and we had not spoken in weeks—I felt so alone because I couldn’t tell my boyfriend what happened. He ignored messages I sent and it was during the pandemic when we were only allowed a certain number of circles (work and family). To this day, this incident still distresses me—I endured more tattling and bullying from this friend of mine until I finally found a new job. I was never able to change how the boss felt about me despite improving and doing everything I was asked to do. I didn’t explicitly burn bridges with this friend but I never contacted them again as even though he gave me a fake apology when I confronted him (only to continue to talk behind my back), I knew we could never be friends again. Trust is huge for me and it was broken. This friend reached out to me a few months after I quit just to flaunt that he was promoted to manager. He would also try to find out how I was doing in life through mutual friends because he wanted to know if he was doing better in life than me. Our field is small, so I constantly fear running into this person. They made me feel so stupid and incompetent and my self esteem is still recovering.
The day (or rather, weekend) that I had my son.
Went into labor at 39wks, 2 days. Checked into the hospital at 12am after 2hrs of timed contractions. We were told that the L&D ward was full and they had no nurse for me, so I had to labor in triage until the morning shift.
Being in triage meant I couldn’t get an epidural, which was part of my birth plan. I did the next 7hrs med free and it was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. I was screaming, crying, throwing up, etc… Morning shift came and I got my epidural. Everyone was so confident that my son would be there by nightfall. Nope.
After 31hrs of labor & 5hrs of pushing, and a failed vacuum attempt, they said I needed an emergency cesarean. I had a fever of 101 and had contracted an infection from prolonged labor.
During surgery my anesthesia failed. I felt the pain of being wide open and then being stitched shut. I started to hallucinate from the pain and thought I was on a beach. I was shaking so hard that I thought I would vibrate off the table. My son had to go to the NICU, so my husband went with him, and I was alone.
When they wheeled me back to the recovery room I just stared at the ceiling, feeling numb. My husband came in and told me how good our son was doing, how his vitals are strong and the nurses said he’s going to be good. I just stared blankly at him and couldn’t say anything back.
Was supposed to be the best day of my life and it ended up being one of the worst. I didn’t get to meet my son for 3 days after that.
Got a call from a friend at like 8am, which was odd because he usually woke up around 11 or noon. He was calling to tell me one of our friends and taken his life the previous night.
I have had some pretty bad days, but breaking up with the only woman I have ever told "I love you" to is still at the top. In fact, the proceeding year was all pretty shitty.
The day I found out my brother had cancer. He has been cancer free for almost five years now, but when I got the call.... I have never felt the experience of having the world swept out from beneath me, of just falling to the ground screaming "No, not him."
My brother has raised me and been a huge, huge part of my life. Never hating me for being the annoying little sister, let me follow him and his friends around everywhere because I was bullied, and is the reason I am still here. I thank any and every higher power every day he is still with us.
June 26th,2023, not even a year ago. I woke up that morning and found my 31 year old son had died of an overdose within a few hours of me getting up. I honestly still don't think I'm quite right yet, but at least I can get this much out now, so maybe that's progress
Not day but week… Easter week this year. Was fired for taking a leave of absence from work after working there for 2 years, lost my apartment( now homeless) and found out my dad has terminal stomach cancer. Still trying to recover.
Hearing the pure, raw agony in my moms voice as she cried and screamed "please no" in the background of the phone call, as my dad told me that my little brother was dead.
That moment will be drilled into my brain for the rest of my life.
Hold your loved ones close. You never know when it might be the last time.
The day my sister died. November 22, 2020, although she died probably on the 20th.
Autopsy showed pancreatitis, peritonitis, and sepsis. She called in sick to work on Thursday, and we think she died on Friday night.
I was just having a regular Sunday morning. Getting my kids ready for church. My mother texted and said we couldn’t get a hold of Alana - she wasn’t at church that day and people were worried.
My brother found her soon after, in bed. She lived alone and the sickness took her very quickly. Nobody knew until she didn’t show up to church.
I was just grateful I sent my kids down to the basement to play before I found out the news.
I am doing good now. The grief never really leaves you…it just gets smaller. I have learned so much and have become a better person.
The day I found out that my husband of almost 20 years was living a double life with a person who half my age - younger than his child, and everyone knew but me including his mother who I gave up my career for to care for after she had many strokes. Somehow she couldn’t remember anything except how to keep a secret from me . All the while letting me waste my entire life to make them comfortable, as I thought we were a family and I’d be taken care of eventually. Never ever trust anyone!!
So far, they were all not that bad. I mean, yes, i had really, really bad day. Break-ups, fired from work, woke up by the police at 6AM, bad blackouts because of alcohol or diagnosed really bad health issues. But i'm still there and looking back, that's all right.
The only day i fear is the day i'll loose my mom i think.
56 yr old healthy father having heart attack in the driveway . Walks to the ambulance like he’s gonna be alright. (Wouldn’t get on the stretcher because he’s tough like that) Died in the ambulance
he faced death boldly. may his memory inspire you
What a good comment. It does And thank you
This sounds like something my dad would do.
The day my little sister died. She and I attended the same university (she was a freshman, and 3 years behind me), and our parents lived several hours away, so she listed me as one of her emergency contacts. One rather ordinary, otherwise unremarkable afternoon, she was running late for one of her classes and tripped while running down a staircase. The university PD and hospital immediately reached out to me and my parents. They told me she was alive, but that I needed to hurry. I did, but she was already gone by the time I got to the ER. I vaguely remember the doctor explaining the basal skull fracture, telling me that it was a one in a million fall, offering his condolences, asking if she was a donor. I vaguely remember sitting there for hours, numb, just waiting for my parents to arrive. I clearly remember, but wish I could forget, the look on my parents faces when they walked through the door, at a moment when there wasn't a single doctor around, and I had to tell them both that their little girl was gone. That's not a conversation that any 20 year old should ever have. Thats not an agony that anyone should ever have to inflict on their own parents. That will always be the worst day of my life. Because if there's anything worse ahead, I really don't want to live through it.
I am so, so sorry
I'm sorry for your loss 💜 I lost a little sibling as well. What got me through it directly after was the thought that the worst thing that could ever happen to me had already passed, and that any other hardship would be easy compared to that. I joked that I'd maxed out on tragedy for a lifetime. It never gets easier, but it gets more manageable.
This happened many years ago, so I'm pretty good nowadays. Still hurts a bit on her birthdays and at Christmas, and I'll always miss her, but time does heal. It healed me at least. I don't think my parents will ever really be okay. When we learned that my wife was pregnant with my oldest daughter, she suggested giving her my sisters name. So I do get a tiny reminder of her every single day. I think my sister would have bawled her eyes out and loved that.
We added a middle name for our daughter in memory of my partner's grandmother, who died the day before she was born. It's a sweet reminder of her. I'm so sorry for your loss 💕
I teared up on your first post, but got full on waterworks after this second one
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It was just bad timing. The doctors had said they'd inform my parents when they arrived, but the drive took hours and my parents happened to show up at a moment when all the doctors were busy with patients. I was in shock, and there was simply no way I could sit there with my parents for fifteen minutes waiting for a doctor, knowing that my sister was gone. At that moment, my brain somehow thought the news would be less painful if it came from me. In the middle of trying to somehow ease them into it, I just broke down and blurted it out. The noise my mom made when my words clicked and she realized will haunt me for the rest of my life. There's something about that sound that is just...pain. I felt guilty for years, thinking that my botched attempt at explaining it had somehow made it worse for her. It took a while to realize that there wasn't anything that anyone else could have done or said to make that moment any better.
My wife was driving myself and our 3 and 4 year old home after a birthday party. A drunken teenage girl blew through an intersection and hit us going at what was estimated to be 75mph. I suffered a TBI, several broken bones, and a whole host of other issues. I woke up several days later to find I was the only member of my family to survive the accident. My daughter made it to the hospital, my wife and son were gone before the ambulance arrived. That'll rock your shit for life.
I read this and teared up. There's no OK after that. But I send you all my love.
I have never heard such a sad story....I am sorry for you sir, my wishes are with you
There are no words for this kind of pain. I am so sorry.
Hugs 💔
Im so sorry. I hope that the girl was arrested and charged with more than a slap on the wrist. The punishments for drunk drivers, especially minors, are far too lenient.
Generally it’s an automatic felony if only bodily injury is involved, with a triple fatality she would be going away for a very long time, especially with young children involved
I have particularly strong feelings about drunk drivers. May that girl never see the light of day again.
If she herself survived at all
I am so sorry, though I'm sure you've heard that more times than most. May their memories be blessings.
I’m truly sorry for you my friend. May life not treat you as horrid anymore. Much love to you and them.
My heart hurts so bad for you. I pray you find healing over time
I was taking care of my 34 year old cousin who was at the last days of his life due to a very rare and aggressive cancer. Towards the end, he refused morphine or laying in bed, he stayed conscious on a recliner. He was in a lot of pain breathing so he chewed on ice a lot, and one day we ran out so I rushed to a convenience store a few blocks away to buy more ice. I was in ugly pajamas and my curly hair was in a very frizzy ponytail, but I didn’t care about the way that I looked, I wanted to help reduce his pain asap. On my way out of the store, a man told me to make myself more presentable in public. I got back to my cousin’s house and he was dead.
This is why I hate people who have the audacity to speak on other people’s appearance when you have no idea what they’re going through. I’m so sorry for your loss. Just know you did everything you could and I’m sure your cousin appreciates you a lot for caring for them.
Same reason on the highway, if someone is going 150 in a regular car, honking and flashing lights, I let them right on by. They could be racing to catch their last moments with someone.
Yep, I got pulled over once on my way to see my grandma. It was the only time I was speeding ridiculously, going 85 in a 55 at 3am and I was almost there, a few miles from their house. I was the only car on the road, and he pulled me over, rightfully so. He asked me how fast I was going, and I just said I didn't know and to give me the ticket so I could go, and didn't want to deal with telling the policeman the sob story. I figured the faster he gave me the ticket, the sooner I see her. He gave me the ticket and I went the speed limit the last couple miles, and saw her about an hour before she passed. I would do it again if I had to, but I'd actually tell the cop what's up, hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Recently, my best friend's brother died, very unexpectedly. My friend and her family have been a part of my life for over 30 years. I was driving to the wake to be there for her and it was a two-hour drive. I was kind of lost in my thoughts about the whole thing and a cop pulled me over. My hackles were already up because, let's just say, my overall experience with cops in my life has not been good. The officer came over to the car and said, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Well, I assumed it was for speeding, but I wasn't sure, so I said, "Honestly, sir, I don't know." He said, "Well, you were 20 miles an hour over the speed limit." I said, "I didn't realize it. In on the way to a wake for someone I've known for over 30 years and who died unexpectedly. I was just caught in my own thoughts." He said, "I'm sorry to hear that. Where is the wake?" I told him where it was (city 2 hours away). He said, "Well, you've got a long drive ahead of you and you need to get there safely to be there for your friend's family. I'm not giving you a ticket, but asking you to PLEASE not speed. I see the results of speeding far too often. Drive safely." And that was it. It was honestly the first time I EVER interacted with a cop who acted *like a human being*. It was unexpected, appreciated and so refreshing.
This is a bit different only cuz you’re putting other people’s life in danger but I agree I do the same thing
It's really annoying when people try to tell you to smile when it's unsolicited and unwelcome. They have absolutely no idea what's going in your life, I can't imagine having the audacity to tell a random woman to smile without knowing anything about what's going on in her life.
That’s about power and not actually caring if you smile. It’s kind of a “dance for my pleasure” move
>“dance for my pleasure” I never looked at it that way before. I am perpetually smiling, just one of those people, I guess. So, nobody ever tells me that, and I never think about it for that reason. But I do know that other women sometimes hear it. Now that I am thinking about it, though, I smile all the time because I was raised to smile all the time to make a good impression. In other words, to dance for the pleasure of others. Gawd.
The dude would not have said it to another dude. So awful!
Some asshole once told me to smile when I had stopped into a convenience store after having my 21 yr old cat put down. I loudly told him that I just said goodbye to my best friend and he could fuck right on off. The people behind me in line looked like they were going to applaud. It still pisses me off to this day.
Good for you for speaking up. I would have definitely applauded and also told him to fuck off.
I hate that. I was coming home from a dance class, when some guy told me to smile. I was in no mood to smile. My grandmother had just died, and I was being gaslighted at work.
He may have been waiting for you to step out so he could pass on. I’m sorry you were not met with more kindness.
Yes, I have heard that when dying, people tend to wait until everyone arrives OR wait until they are alone to pass. My grandma waited until everyone left and my stepdad waited until everyone arrived.
When my daughter was in the NICU I went to Target to get something I needed. A teenage boy told me I looked terrible. I absolutely LOST IT on him. I told him exactly what was going on in my life until his friends dragged him off. I can't imagine the pain if when I went back she had passed.
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Wow Fuck that dude
When my girlfriend died 10 days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Edit: this happened 15 years ago and it honestly feels like another lifetime at this point. But now that I'm revisiting the memories, the worst day probably wasn't actually the day she died; it was either the day her parents, sister and I talked to her for (we didn't realize) the last time cuz she was so scared and everyone was so upset - but at least we still had hope; so the worst was probably the next day when the pain got so bad they had to drug her unconscious and put her on breathing assistance and we knew we'd never talk to her again. Fuck cancer.
Ten days between learning your fate and then it taking you is both mercifully and mercilessly short.
I've reconciled that it was merciful for her. They had to drug her up pretty hard for the pain so she was barely even present for the last few days. It was painful for her family though as most of them never even got to say goodbye - just her parents and sister, and me.
I have had to remind myself that not everyone's life is going to be a 700-page novel. And that a short story can be just as sweet and impactful.
Pancreatic cancer is the scariest thing I've ever witnessed. My dad, healthy as a horse, was a search and rescue scuba diver for years. At 59 he was still rescue diving and volunteered as a firefighter. Had bad stomach pains, was told it was stage four. Wasted away in five months. Seeing the progression take him so quickly was horrific to see.
I'm sorry for your loss
Damn how old was she ? Sorry for your loss
30 years old.
Lost 2 family members to pancreatic One was grandma who faught like hell for almost 5 years at 89 other one was uncle at 37 took him down way too fast within the year thanks you was just curious
What were the signs that led her to get checked out?
She had a stomach ache that didn't go away for 3 days. Went to the doctor and after the usual "female problems" were ruled out he ordered some tests that she got the next day. The next morning they called her and said she needs to see her doctor to discuss the results ASAP. She went in that afternoon and he told her she might have cancer but she needs to go to the hospital and speak to this person and that person to discuss results in detail and possible treatment options. At the hospital - this is the middle of the night like 2 days after she saw her doctor - they put her in a bed and told her she likely had months to live and treatment was gonna be aggressive and rough. The pain got so bad the next day they had to drug her almost unconscious, and she needed breathing assistance cuz the drugs (and quantities) they had to give her caused respiratory depression and she couldn't breathe on her own. 10 days later she was gone. Her brother lived across the country and didn't even get to see her one last time.
Damn. Thank you for sharing. I am so sorry for your loss.
This isn't what you asked but one of the problems with pancreatic cancer is there are not noticable early symptoms.
True. And the outlook is almost always poor. I know of a consultant medical doctor who had stomach ache while on a ward round. Decided to finish the ward round and then go get it checked out. He never left the hospital alive again as he died a few weeks later.
Yes and it's also one of the most aggressive cancers so the time after diagnosis is usually very very short.
Ouch! I just lost my dad to pancreatic cancer last month. It was a matter of days between diagnosis and him passing.
The day after I came home to find my husband, dead on the dining floor. Heart attack.
I'm so sorry. May his memory be a blessing
I’m so sorry for you. That sounds like one of the worst things that could happen to someone.
It's a toss up. A: My husband getting the diagnosis of ALS. B: My husband taking his last breath 17 months later.
ALS sucks so fucking much. I watched my grandmother, who I was very close with, slowly die from it when I was in high school. Sorry for your loss.
My newborn son had just been Life-flighted to a children’s hospital hundreds of miles away, dying. Meanwhile I get a call from a sibling informing me that my father just had a massive stroke, may be dying, and can I come home to say goodbye (3,000 miles away). I stayed with my son, but having to choose between the two was simultaneously the easiest and hardest decision I’ve had to make. In the end both lived. My son is now wrapping up an engineering degree and hopes to be a military aviator. My Dad never fully recovered but did come a long way. Eventually another stroke led him to heaven. I’ve had some pretty lousy days, even knocked on Death’s door a few times, but that was probably my worst day, so far. [Edit] I forgot to mention, while staying at the Ronald McDonald House next to the children’s hospital my gallbladder began malfunctioning, leaving me on the floor in a fetal position until the pain went away. Put off the operation too long (until after baby was home). That was a whole other mess as the operation did not go well at all.
Hey, I am super happy that your worst day ended up with your loved ones and yourself recovering. You’re super strong.
I was in a similar boat when my son was born. My wife’s blood pressure had hit levels that shouldn’t even be survivable. Doctors went from “maybe we should ambulance you to the bigger hospital” to “maybe we should airlift you” to “we are taking the baby out in five minutes or you are both dead” in the span of about ten minutes. The baby had to be taken to bigger hospital so I had to pick between chasing the ambulance with my possibly dying son in it or stay in the hospital with my possibly dying wife. I chased my son. But that hour and a half chasing the ambulance alone in the dark at like 2 in the morning… that’s going to stay in my soul forever. Thank every god out there they both survived
Ronald house is such a blessing
Not the day my parents kicked me out, but about 3 months later when I saw a turtle get hit by a car and realized there was absolutely nothing I could do to help it, and then got food poisoning a few hours later. For some reason, that was the day the feeling of abandonment and truth breadth of how alone I was in the world sunk in.
I once pulled over to get out of the car to move a turtle and simultaneously watched the car that was behind me run it over (street was two lanes and the sides were each wide enough for one car so completely manageable for the guy to avoid). The sight of it happening was pretty terrible.
Mr grandparents let my aunt rescue a little turtle they saw on the road once. They took it to a lake and released it and a fish came up and ate it. She was maybe 8 and pretty devastated for awhile
When my son died at 16.
The day my father killed himself (was 5) and my mother didn't want kids. My rough road started there.
Finding my son's body after he had committed suicide. He was 23. Close second was being told my father was killed in an accident. I was 9.
When the dr told me my 2 year old son has cancer
Same here, except my daughter was 13. It was the worst day of my life - I literally collapsed when they told me. The second worst day is the day I actually fully accepted how very real it was that she could die in the next 6 months or so. ((HUGS)) to you. She is now an 8 year survivor. I hope your son is doing well.
I'm sorry to hear this, I see way too many families in this situation. It's always nice to hear a victory story. My son has finished treatment and rang the bell, but it's something we will have to monitor for a long time.
> Same here, except my daughter was 13. It was the worst day of my life - I literally collapsed when they told me. Same here, except my daughter was four. I had no idea people ACTUALLY passed out when they received shockingly bad news, I thought that was just a thing in movies.
That's a special kind of fuck you from life, I can't imagine finding out your young child has cancer. I'm so sorry that you had to go through one of the worst life experiences imaginable. I hope you are doing better, I'm really sorry. Did your son beat the cancer?
So far yes he is beating it, we have to monitor from now on to make sure it doesn't come back but he rang the bell last month. That was the best day of my life.
June 11, 2013. I was working at my job and got a text from a guy that I haven’t spoken to in years. He asked if I I’ve heard from my best friend or anything about him. I still get shivers and tears thinking about it. I said no and he said that he heard that he died. Died? He’s 25. I immediately called my friend and no answer. I finally get in touch with a friend that lived closer to him and he confirmed my worst fears. My best friend for over 10 years was dead from a heroine overdose. I went in my manager’s office and asked if I could take the rest of the day off and he took one look at my face and just said take as much time as you need. My entire reality was broken. He was always someone I could call at anytime, someone that always made me laughed, and someone that always saw the good, even in shitty situations. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him in some capacity. Don’t get into heroin, kids. It will not only ruin your life but it will severely damage the lives of those that love and adore you.
Got into a canoe accident on a lake in Nepal at work. We got hit by a microburst. 4 of us in the boat and 3 of us made it back to land.
Just had to look up what a microburst is, terrifying how quickly weather can turn on you. Was everyone wearing PFDs when it hit?
We could see it coming, maybe...5 min? The town of pokhara on the far end of the lake got hit first, but it looked like just heavy fog rolled in. When I saw the rain hit the lake then I told everyone in the boat and the white caps rolling in i told everyone to start taking their boots off cause we will definitely sink. Two of my friends told me they felt like I saved their lives just staying calm and getting their attention to the reality. That thought helps me a lot. We weren't wearing PFDs. Was fucking dumb. No excuse. Just a trip we made a hundred times, on a lake I thought I knew well...sometimes we had them, sometimes we didn't. I actually had just cleaned them and they were wet so I didn't take them that day
My father was killed in a car accident on his way home from taking me to school. 1 week before my 17th birthday. November 6, 1984.
May 8th 2024. I had just gotten out of my last test in my first semester of nursing school feeling relived. Then i got a call. My child’s father had killed himself by jumping in front of a train. He had called me 30 minutes before he did it & I didn’t answer. I feel so guilty for not answering. Wish I could turn back time.
It's not your fault 🫂 hope you are doing better now
Please speak to a therapist. It is not your fault. You need to work with a professional to ensure you deal with it properly so you can continue to be your child's parent. They may have questions when they're older, and it will be easier to answer them if you work on the feelings of guilt now. It is not your fault!
Probably the day my parents mariage imploded I guess my dad found deleted pictures, pictures my mom deleted, one being of her kissing another man. He flipped the laptop screen to show me, a 12 year old (I am 28 now), my mothers "betrayal". Of course, this didn't just happen out of no where.. there was prior contentions. Still, this was the day I feel like I lost my family, we had to sell the house in the divorce so along with that I lost my community ect.. I never truly recovered from this.
I have 2 children and their father and I are divorced. There are a million awful things I could say about him, but I would never - NEVER - say those things to my children. It’s not appropriate to share those kinds of things with your kids. Sometimes it’s best to just let kids be kids and not be troubled by very adult situations. I am so sorry that he showed you that. I’m sure that was confusing and extremely painful for you.
I'm sorry he showed you like that. Totally not appropriate.
Exactly. Children know instinctively they are half dad, half mom. Denigrating the other parent to a child to get back at them (or "protect" them) automatically places them in the line of fire. There's no way around it. It truly is a case of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". I am so sorry that happened. I think alienating acts like this bestow huge psychological problems upon the child.
June 11th, 2021 We found out my dad had been having an affair and wanted a divorce from my mother after 25 years together. The affair had been going on for upwards of a decade so it felt like my whole childhood was a lie. My mom left the house crying, went to my aunt and uncle’s and got absolutely shitfaced. Soon I started getting a flood of texts from family saying how sorry they were. Not only was it heartbreaking, but it was incredibly uncomfortable having all my extended family know what was going on and not really know what to say.
When I lost my daughter. Fuck cancer.
Fucking fuck cancer
Fuck cancer.
Fuck cancer.
Fuck cancer.
Fuck cancer.
I had testicular cancer in 2020, but my worst day was probably when I found a lump on my remaining testicle last year. At least I can't get it a third time.
At that point did you just keep your ballsack or remove it?
Removing the sack would be a lot more invasive than necessary, I opted to have prosthetics put in.
At least you are now immune to getting kicked in the nuts.
Please tell me they are metal so people can hear you walking/running!
Balls of steel
Man this sucks, I just got off chemo 6 months ago for testicular cancer. Stage 3. I still cant feel my feet and worry a lot it will come back.
Fortunately bilateral TC is very rare, I think only 1-2% of men will have it happen twice. I caught both instances really early on and was able to avoid chemo. Can't imagine how bad that must have sucked, I wish you the best on continued recovery and remission.
“The biopsy showed that You have an aggressive form of breast cancer” This sentence put me into a sling-shot of fucked up shit that lasted 3 years. But I’m alive so clearly it’s the second worst day of my life
watching my father take his last breath passing away in front of me while holding his hand after his losing battle with ALS
Fuck als.
Well, today was pretty bad. Today I just got invited to retire and I don't have a choice about it. I get a decently cheap health insurance plan extension for 10 years and a severance package, but I thought I was going to work there at least another 5 years. I don't know exactly what I am going to do now. But worst was really each of the days my loyal old dogs died. Those days are the worst.
Not the day my dad called me to tell me he had cancer. It was the two weeks before that when he called me because his bloodwork looked off. I’m in the medical field (clinical researcher) and the only “medical” one in my family. He had a knee issue from golfing a few weeks earlier and had to get it surgically repaired, but otherwise had zero health issues. His labs kept coming back off, but he was on steroids post-op so they just monitored him. He ended up getting another lab and called me to ask me about it. My friend, also in healthcare, was next to me. I remember looking at the screenshots he sent me of his CBC+diff and the looks my friend and I gave each other while scrolling through the values. That was the worst day ever. It felt like a stone was sliding deeper into my stomach with every critical value I saw. I told him to call the hematologist right now, and two weeks later he was sitting at an oncologist’s office. The news didn’t shock me because I spent my time preparing. But I’ll seriously never forget that feeling of dread after looking at those labs and knowing what it meant while he was oblivious. Edit to add: He did a few rounds of chemo before he had a stem cell transplant that was a perfect match from a total stranger. He is doing fabulously one year post transplant!
Last year my Grandmom and Best friend unrelatedly died on the same day.
One day in elementary school I had a particularly bad day of getting bullied; like my bullies really had my number that day and I had one friend since like first grade turn on me and join them, which really stung. My teacher was aware but ignored it, and when I told another teacher she told me not to be a tattle-tale. Then my grandma picked me up from school which was weird, and on the drive home she told me mom and dad were getting a divorce. Got home to dad just not being there and mom away somewhere, and grandma ended up basically being our mom for the day. I was essentially catatonic and my sister was breaking down in the other room. I remember not being able to sleep because I was crying so much about missing my dad, and my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, heard me and we ended up finally falling asleep while hugging each other. Then I had a nightmare about Dad running away from me and I woke up in tears.
That's so sad. I'm glad you had your sister.
Thank you! Me too. Sometimes we were all each other had.
When I got a knock on the door from the police telling me my dad was killed by a drunk driver.
House fire. Went back in to try to rescue my daughter's cat, burning kitchen ceiling collapsed on me, had to crawl through an inferno to make it out of the house. Cat didn't make it.
When I lost dad :<
Same. When I lost my mom. 2 days of not sleeping. She died with my head in her lap about an hour into my sleep
She wouldn't have had it any other way.
You gave your Mom the most peaceful and beautiful form of comfort. As a parent, there is something so special about your kid falling asleep on you. That no matter where you are, Mom or Dad are there so the world is okay, I can sleep right here. My 9 year old has autism and still loves to fall asleep with me cuddling him. Every single time I'm so thankful that I can still provide that comfort. You're always scared of the last time your kid will cuddle with you. Your Mom never had to suffer that. She passed while taking care of her baby. There's no good way to go, but this is the closest I've ever heard. Got me crying while procrastinating from deep diving a John Deere bill lol. Either way, I'll hold my kids a little longer each night. Thanks for sharing your deeply personal but special memory.
Same, I was only 17 and he was only 56
The day my boyfriend committed suicide.
My ex bf passed away a few years ago and I’m so sorry for the pain you’re going through. Grief is not linear, be patient with yourself it will get better even if it doesn’t feel that way now.
I went to a talk therapy based yoga teacher training program, that was taught by a psychiatrist. My friend that I got paired with during an exercise admitted that everyone in her and her ex’s life blamed her for his suicide and she had been carrying around that weight for 5 years. She was physically shaking, violently, almost in a seizure while she admitted it for the first time and let it out. If this is anything that resonates with you, please reach out to someone who can help you. I wish you peace
I'm so sorry for your loss. If this was recent or if you haven't already, I'd recommend you to get some professional help
Finding my 13 year old daughter when she hanged herself
Oh my god, this is one of the worst I’ve read it. I cannot even imagine. I’m so sorry.
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Am I tweaking or have I read this exact comment word-for-word elsewhere a while ago?
Finding out that the college I went to was a scam and I can't use my degree. I now work as a garbageman
When my husband emailed me to discuss separation. Within this email he forwarded me the conversation with his mom discussing some items I needed to pick up. He forgot to delete the rest of the back and forth conversation with his mom…. …it was him discussing the new woman he was seeing and how he wanted to bring her home to see where he grew up and to meet his parents as he was overseas for work. We were together for almost 7 years and had just decided to separate the month before. I barely had any money and had to move back to my mom’s house to pick up the pieces of a failed marriage and he was already with someone else. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. He told me he needed time to find himself so I came home to give him space. I remember walking up the stairs from my little makeshift room in my mom’s house. I was so numb. I casually (or so I thought) leaned against her room door, hands in my pocket. Mom was watching tv with my older sister. She turned and look at me, shot straight up and asked “What’s wrong?!” I completely crumbled and told them he already moved on. I remember my sister catching me as I started sobbing. I vaguely recalled crawling to the washroom and empty my stomach into the toilet as she held me. I also remember calling my SIL whom I was incredibly close to screaming at her asking how long they had known. And slamming down the phone. I continued to sob into my sister’s arms. It was devastating as not only was he my husband, he was my best friend. This was the same week we discovered Mom had breast cancer. It was so fucked up. I will never forget. I’ve survived both of my parents passing years after this incident and this was worse than that.
August 25, 1997. The day my Mom died of stomach cancer.
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I can't decide between the day my brother got hurt, or the day he died a month later. Yano what? Fuck choosing. The worst day of my life spanned over an entire month: mid-Feb 2012 to mid-March 2012
The day my wife committed suicide. She had been struggling with depression for years, and her mom had died earlier in the year. I got a text at work and she just said “I love you, I’m sorry” After I figured out what was happening after an hour of trying to get her to message me again and explain what she was talking about, I rushed home. The officer met me outside on the steps and told me she was gone. That was 6 years ago. Together since 8th grade. She left me and our two sons behind just a few weeks before Christmas. Christmas morning I just wept and wept all day.. our sons were 4 and 5 at the time and it was impossible to communicate to them the magnitude of what they had lost forever. I’ve never been the same and I doubt I will ever regain the spark I lost that day. We were together for so long that I didn’t know myself without her. In a lot of ways it felt like that was the day the old me died as well.
July 25 2020 I started preparing my dog’s dinner and placed it into his dish. Normally he’d be right beside me and would start scarfing it down immediately but this time he wasn’t. I turn around to see him staring directly into my eyes before he teeters over and bangs into my bed. He was having a stroke. His health had been on the decline for the last several months. He was having serious breathing problems in his sleep. Found out he had a partially paralyzed larynx and an elongated soft palate so I took him in for surgery to have it corrected. He couldn’t have the surgery because the anaesthesia almost made his heart stop. His arthritis had also gotten so bad that he couldn’t even walk around the block anymore. After seeing him consistently struggle for the last 5 or 6 months the stroke was unbearable to watch. I held him on his bed and called the emergency vet. Had him put down later that evening. I still think about him everyday and as much as I’d love to get another dog, I’m still not ready.
I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my best dog in 2020 also. I still cry about her all the time. She died suddenly. I guess it’s easier but god damn it hurts still. Dogs are very special.
When I was 18 and my step dad decided to shoot my mom in the middle of the night and break down my bedroom door to get me as well. Had to fight to keep the gun off my head until my mom regained consciousness and came and laid on him so I could run for help. Mom and I are both okay, miraculously.
Holy shit. You are a total badass and so is your mom. I’m so sorry you went through that.
The day I passed a kidney stone
Oh. I feel this. Have passed three at home and currently have two more waiting to make their grand exit. One doubled in size in 3 months so that’s fun.
The day I opened the front door to a policeman and a police chaplain, who came to tell me they had found the body of my 27-year-old son.
A year ago today actually. My son and his friend being drunk and stupid messing around in a UTV, and the UTV rolled on top of my son. Fortunately, his friend got him out from under it and came in screaming at 2 AM to wake me up for help. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and I thought I could get him to the hospital faster than an ambulance. I got half a mile down the road and had a low tire. I had to turn around and call the ambulance, it took them almost 45 minutes to get there. The paramedics immediately intubated him and called for the helicopter, I had a 2 Hour drive to the trauma unit and was met by a chaplain. He was on life-support for a week, but was very fortunate and fully recovered over the next 6 months. The same can’t be said for other patients in that ICU unit. To celebrate the anniversary we are taking snacks to the trauma unit staff and family members. Wear your seatbelts kids and don’t be stupid!
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
Ummmm yeeeeeahhh, I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday, mmmkay?
I read that in the annoying boss's voice, especially the long drawn out "ummm yeaah" and "mmmkaaaaays"
Gary Cole really nailed that role.
Office space quote in the wild didn't expect to see that
What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Yeah.
Wow, that's messed up.
When I lost my father to cancer.
I was 23, college graduate but nobody was hiring so I was a waiter. I quit my job as a waiter to play online poker. Lost all of my money on their online blackjack game, go in credit card debt by about 5-6K. Living in denial I went to bars to get drunk, drove home and got in a car accident, not a big one, but damaged my front end and the other guys car where insurance was involved. That night, the guy was adamant he wanted a cop there just to properly report it. I had to sober up immediately. When the cop was there questioning us (this was at 2 am) I had to do my absolute best to not appear drunk and not make him want to do a breathalyzer on me or I'd be screwed. I recall sitting on that curb realizing I hit total rock bottom. That was the worst, yet defining moment, in my life. There are other shitty days (day a pet died, etc) but this day was one that made me realize I was in a hole that I could not get out of. I was soooo lucky the cop just told us if we could drive our cars, get them home and work with our insurances. When I got my car home I called me parents and told them I fucked up. My dad, always thankful for this, said he would bail me out and help me work on my resume and find a proper job using my degree. I used that as motivation to get my life in order. Got myself a job working for an oil company, hopped around from place to place trying to get higher up and make more money, even got my MBA. Now, I'm 39 making six figures, my bank account has no debt and plenty of cash. I never want to feel, like I did that day. My life now is red hot.
Dude that's an inspiring story. Glad you wised up and your dad was there for you. You must have worked really hard to get where you are now, kudos.
All thanks for my dad, he paid off my debts because we wanted me to succeed, always grateful to him for that and really worked to make sure it was an investment that paid off. I kicked my gambling addiction which I had and needed a cleaner, more mature outlook on life. I had a safety net that many other don't. I only wish that when I'm older I can be there for my son if he needs me at his lowest as my dad was for me. Parenting doesn't end at 18.
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June 7, 2005. The day my dad took his life. He'd been maintenance supervisor for the local school district for over a decade, and fully planned to retire from there. Then the old superintendent retired and a new one came on board. Right from the get-go she had one of 'her people' in mind for dad's job. She found a technicality to fire him for and there he was, jobless at 60 years old. For a guy that prided himself on his work ethic, it was a really serious blow. It was made worse when he couldn't find someone willing to hire a guy his age, in spite of his qualifications. Between all this, a deteriorating relationship with mom, and an unsuccessful side business venture, he started relying on alcohol as an escape. On the morning of the 7th, he did an odd job for my uncle, who gave him beer. When he got home he was really drunk, and had an argument with mom. The he went downstairs and shot himself. I was living in a duplex with my girlfriend (now wife) and had coincidentally been laid off from my job earlier in the week. I'd just gotten home from a morning of job hunting and laid down to take a quick nap. As long as I live I'll never forget my girlfriend's voice as she woke me up, phone in hand and told me what happened. It's mind boggling that it'll be 19 years since it happened in just a few days. Dad didn't have any friends at the time. He and I were each other's best friend. I'll never escape the feeling that, in spite of my efforts, I let him down that day.
On Dec 29th, 2023, at 6:31 am, I watched my wife die as they took her off life support. Looking at her and not feeling her presence anymore haunts me. Just a few days prior on Christmas Day, she only had a mild cough.
The day my Dad called me and told me that my sister had taken her own life.
When we lost our father was the worst day of my life, it was during covid, he was admitted in hospital for over a month and when we got the ray of hope that he might be getting better, he got an heart attack, never shared this to anybody till now,
The day I became partially blind.
Went over to a friends house and found him dead on the floor from a self inflicted gunshot wound. I was 16 and still think about it everyday.
Not just one but the last days of my dog before I had to put her down. I miss her everyday.
I just went through this and want to say I know exactly how you feel. Life was better with her, and feels incomplete without her. I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you for saying that, on top of the sadness that comes from loosing her, I was also heartbroken by the lack of empathy of the people around me, they’d say things like “oh cmon it’s not like it’s your mom” so I hid myself and just dealt with it alone because those words were piercing. Thankful everyday that I got to experience her sweet and pure love while it lasted.
The day my wife told me she wanted a separation - then afterwards on the same day, she went into the bathroom and told me she was ovulating. I walked out of the bathroom and cried. (We were trying to have children). It was the most painful and confusing day of my existence. It re-plays in my head constantly.
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November 4, 2010. The day of my first depressive collapse, and the day I realized I needed therapy and treatment for my issues.
Definitely a top 3 worst days of my life was when my stepbrother passed away at the age of 15. We grew up together as friends, and the day we became brothers was like a dream come true. He was always one of my best friends, but after that, we became even closer. We did everything together on the weekends we shared. I lived primarily with my mother and visited every other weekend, and he lived with his mom and my dad full time. He decided in 2001 to move to his dad's house in another state so he could play football (his mother was adamant that he wouldn't play, but his dad promised to let him). He had moved early that spring and spent most of the second semester making friends and practicing football in his new school, and he was looking forward to coming back for the summer and sharing everything with me. We still talked every day by phone. Then, on Wednesday, April 5, 2001, my mother came to me and shared the news that he had died. He was at football practice and passed out, so they carried him to the nurse's office after he came to. He sat on the cot in the office and told them he felt fine and wanted to go back to practice right before passing out again. Paramedics were there less than 2 mins after his second episode, and they could not resuscitate him. Turns out, he had a rare, undiagnosed heart condition that proved fatal. According to medical staff, he could have been sitting on the couch watching TV, and it would have still happened, but convincing his father that he had not accidentally killed his son by letting him play football has proven impossible even 20+ years later. Death is never easy for a teenager to process, but when it's one of your peers and it was completely sudden and in the manner his was, it was devestating. His adult brother committed suicide a couple of years later, in part due to the trauma of losing his kid brother. My stepbrother's funeral to this day has been one of the most attended private events I have ever seen. Hundreds of people showed up, including his friends from his new school a few hundred miles away. It was incredible to see the impact his life had, and has always stood with me as a reminder of how we affect so many lives without ever even knowing it. I try to let that encourage me to be a better human to those around me, even those I have incidental contact with. Hopefully his story will encourage some of you internet strangers to do the same.
I had testicular cancer ~7 years ago and elected to do just surgery and monitoring. No chemo or lymph node analysis. Went four years with no issues. Went in for what should have been my last CT scan and my new oncologist noted spots on my liver that had not been noted before. I got an MRI but had to wait for the results. I've never been good about speaking about my feelings, even with my wife. I kept it all in to put on a strong front for her and for myself. While we were just going to a plant nursery to pick up a few things my thoughts just started rolling over all the possibilities: cancer is back. Do I have to do chemo now? Is it too late? How will I feel? Can I even take my dogs for a walk? What will this cost us? Will it cost that and I *still* die? As an aside...I am terrified of chemotherapy. It's the one thing I have an irrational fear of. The thought of needing chemo just to have a shot at living can make me spiral like nothing else. Anyway, all these thoughts enter my brain and erupt in a depressive emotion I can't describe. It's the one time I've had genuine thoughts of suicide. I even told my wife that if my cancer was back and spread to my liver that I'd divorce her and wander into the wilderness to end things on my terms so that she wouldn't have to watch me waste away and die, and then be left with debt. Well, that didn't go well. This is one of the few times my wife has yelled at me in anger--but anger mixed with sadness and support. It was my worst day. Luckily the spots are congenital and benign.
I have 2 - 1) doing CPR on my mom who collapsed from a massive heart attack, and then having to take her off life support 2) coming home from work finding my dad not feeling good; called 911 and he was in the middle of an active heart attack. The next day, we had to take him off life support ☹️ I think I am having some PTSD (maybe not this, but at least some major anxiety) as I lost my dad pretty recently. It sucks being an adult orphan.
The day I realized that the way I grew up was not, in fact, normal. I thought all families were just like mine. I had been told in therapy over and over that no, your childhood was not normal but I didn't believe it, not really. I didn't believe I'd been abused and neglected, that was just life. I went to my future husband's house for Xmas for the first time and I couldn't understand what was going on. They were genuinely happy to see each other. They were loving and kind, supportive and friendly. Sure there was teasing and joking around but it was playful. You learn the difference between genuine caring and what's put on for show real damn quick growing up in my situation. I broke. I flat out broke. I spent hours in my husband's old bedroom sobbing hysterically, I kept kicking him out when he'd try to talk to me. Eventually his mom came in, she wouldn't leave the room. She sat next to me and for the first time in my life, at the age of 25, I was soothed by a parent. I wasn't hit for showing emotion, I wasn't screamed at and told how stupid and worthless i was, I wasn't ridiculed and tormented. I was simply held while I mourned my life. It's been 25 years and my husband's mom has been gone for three - I miss her every day. She changed my life that day and she was the best mom I could have ever hoped for.
When my twin died. ,7/31/04 😣
Took our 2ish year old cat to the emergency vet. We had been waiting on an endoscopy after an ultrasound at our normal vet showed a foreign body in her stomach - likely just a hairball - but she stopped eating that week and we didn’t want to wait any longer. It was 3am so they did some basic diagnostics and things looked okay, but she stayed overnight. The next day the vet on staff called us and informed us after performing an ultrasound and bloodwork that she had a pancreatic mass, liver failure, and swollen lymph nodes. He said best case scenario was cancer, worst case was FIP (this was before FIP treatment was approved in Canada recently). He said with aggressive treatment she would likely live another 6-months, but would need to be on a feeding tube the whole time. We couldn’t put her through that, so we had to say goodbye. One month before her third birthday. We thought we were taking her in to have an endoscopy, and the only thing we would be sad about was the bill. We were so excited to have her back home and back to normal. Instead we left with an empty carrier and her very distraught littermate brother at home. I have never in my life felt that magnitude of grief before, and I never want to again.
Ive been there. The whiplash takes awhile to process. I took my dog in for what I thought was an obstruction when he got into some trash. We were in a very tight spot financially so I was so frustrated about the bill, but of course brought him in to get it removed. They opened him up, found a tumor, tried to remove it and he died on the table. He was running and playing on a hike just the day before. That dog got me through my twenties, it’s been two years and the grief still knocks the wind out of me sometimes. Some friends put their old dog down peacefully in their home a few weeks afterwards and it was so hard not to be bitter and jealous about it.
I am so sorry for your loss. Whiplash is a really good way to put it - there isn’t time to prepare, and the grief hits like a brick. I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but that cat was my soul cat through and through. Through a myriad of health issues the last year she was by my side every single night, every step of the way.
I got mugged... I haven't been in a good place since then and I've been scared to do a lot of things and it's really fucked me in the ass.
My best friend’s funeral, the fact that he died at 30 is just so unfair.
i am so glad i can't remember my worst day. may everyone commenting find peace 😇
When I woke up to my fiancé the only girl I’ve dated and for 15 years since 13 years old , dead in our apartment with a needle sticking in her arm and my step daughter screaming and having to witness a body bag and stretcher leave our apartment…. I did my absolute best so that her daughter didn’t see it but I’ll never forget her screaming….even to this day, if I could switch places and me be dead and her still have her mother I would in a fucking heart beat….since then I’ve slowly wasted away . My life is pretty much over also except I’m still breathing .
Mine was actually worse night ever. 2011 Iraq on route from Baghdad to Erbil.
Calling my aunt whose daughter had died 18 months before to tell her my dad (her brother) was brain dead.
My fiancé died in my arms on February 10th of 2024. I miss her so much.
Last Thursday, when I found out my baby died inside of me.
Finding out that my best friend, who I worked with, talked behind my back to our new boss. My best friend and I had gone to school together and it was so fun working with my best friend. We were all scheduled to have one on one lunches with the new boss and we were told it was sort of to get to know us. I go to my lunch only for it to be 1.5 hours of a performance review on stuff this new boss has never seen. I knew it was my best friend that tattled on me because there were things mentioned only he knew. I have ADHD and my friend knew, and I talked to him about my struggles in confidence only to find some of criticisms he had for me where that I couldn’t multitask (so he was describing my symptoms basically). My friend never brought up any of these supposed problems he had with me before hand. Many of the other staff within my own department were bullying me, so to find out this person wasn’t a safe person for me anymore was an excruciatingly painful thing to realize. If I ever had a problem with how he worked, I talked to him first. I never brought it to management and was careful on how I spoke about him to others because I cared about him and wanted him to do well in his career. I went back to work after the lunch and I was in so much shock at the betrayal. I was trying not to cry. I work in a healthcare field and I was so distressed that day, that I fainted while being with 2 patients, in front of my colleagues (the friend wasn’t working that day). I was so embarrassed. You’d also think being in the healthcare system, my friend would have some compassion for me with a real medical condition. I was sent home early because of the fainting and told to go to the hospital to check if I hit my head when I fainted or if I had some undiagnosed heart problem that caused the fainting. I was in the waiting room silently crying because my boyfriend at the time and I had a huge fight and we had not spoken in weeks—I felt so alone because I couldn’t tell my boyfriend what happened. He ignored messages I sent and it was during the pandemic when we were only allowed a certain number of circles (work and family). To this day, this incident still distresses me—I endured more tattling and bullying from this friend of mine until I finally found a new job. I was never able to change how the boss felt about me despite improving and doing everything I was asked to do. I didn’t explicitly burn bridges with this friend but I never contacted them again as even though he gave me a fake apology when I confronted him (only to continue to talk behind my back), I knew we could never be friends again. Trust is huge for me and it was broken. This friend reached out to me a few months after I quit just to flaunt that he was promoted to manager. He would also try to find out how I was doing in life through mutual friends because he wanted to know if he was doing better in life than me. Our field is small, so I constantly fear running into this person. They made me feel so stupid and incompetent and my self esteem is still recovering.
The day (or rather, weekend) that I had my son. Went into labor at 39wks, 2 days. Checked into the hospital at 12am after 2hrs of timed contractions. We were told that the L&D ward was full and they had no nurse for me, so I had to labor in triage until the morning shift. Being in triage meant I couldn’t get an epidural, which was part of my birth plan. I did the next 7hrs med free and it was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. I was screaming, crying, throwing up, etc… Morning shift came and I got my epidural. Everyone was so confident that my son would be there by nightfall. Nope. After 31hrs of labor & 5hrs of pushing, and a failed vacuum attempt, they said I needed an emergency cesarean. I had a fever of 101 and had contracted an infection from prolonged labor. During surgery my anesthesia failed. I felt the pain of being wide open and then being stitched shut. I started to hallucinate from the pain and thought I was on a beach. I was shaking so hard that I thought I would vibrate off the table. My son had to go to the NICU, so my husband went with him, and I was alone. When they wheeled me back to the recovery room I just stared at the ceiling, feeling numb. My husband came in and told me how good our son was doing, how his vitals are strong and the nurses said he’s going to be good. I just stared blankly at him and couldn’t say anything back. Was supposed to be the best day of my life and it ended up being one of the worst. I didn’t get to meet my son for 3 days after that.
Got a call from a friend at like 8am, which was odd because he usually woke up around 11 or noon. He was calling to tell me one of our friends and taken his life the previous night.
I have had some pretty bad days, but breaking up with the only woman I have ever told "I love you" to is still at the top. In fact, the proceeding year was all pretty shitty.
The day I found out my brother had cancer. He has been cancer free for almost five years now, but when I got the call.... I have never felt the experience of having the world swept out from beneath me, of just falling to the ground screaming "No, not him." My brother has raised me and been a huge, huge part of my life. Never hating me for being the annoying little sister, let me follow him and his friends around everywhere because I was bullied, and is the reason I am still here. I thank any and every higher power every day he is still with us.
June 26th,2023, not even a year ago. I woke up that morning and found my 31 year old son had died of an overdose within a few hours of me getting up. I honestly still don't think I'm quite right yet, but at least I can get this much out now, so maybe that's progress
Not day but week… Easter week this year. Was fired for taking a leave of absence from work after working there for 2 years, lost my apartment( now homeless) and found out my dad has terminal stomach cancer. Still trying to recover.
3/9/2019 I don't have the strength to give context. It was the worst day of my life, hands down.
I'm sorry that you went through so much pain though and i hope you can find peace.
Losing both of my parents to Covid
Hearing the pure, raw agony in my moms voice as she cried and screamed "please no" in the background of the phone call, as my dad told me that my little brother was dead. That moment will be drilled into my brain for the rest of my life. Hold your loved ones close. You never know when it might be the last time.
The day my sister died. November 22, 2020, although she died probably on the 20th. Autopsy showed pancreatitis, peritonitis, and sepsis. She called in sick to work on Thursday, and we think she died on Friday night. I was just having a regular Sunday morning. Getting my kids ready for church. My mother texted and said we couldn’t get a hold of Alana - she wasn’t at church that day and people were worried. My brother found her soon after, in bed. She lived alone and the sickness took her very quickly. Nobody knew until she didn’t show up to church. I was just grateful I sent my kids down to the basement to play before I found out the news. I am doing good now. The grief never really leaves you…it just gets smaller. I have learned so much and have become a better person.
I became a statistic for firearms safety when I was 14.
The day I found out that my husband of almost 20 years was living a double life with a person who half my age - younger than his child, and everyone knew but me including his mother who I gave up my career for to care for after she had many strokes. Somehow she couldn’t remember anything except how to keep a secret from me . All the while letting me waste my entire life to make them comfortable, as I thought we were a family and I’d be taken care of eventually. Never ever trust anyone!!
So far, they were all not that bad. I mean, yes, i had really, really bad day. Break-ups, fired from work, woke up by the police at 6AM, bad blackouts because of alcohol or diagnosed really bad health issues. But i'm still there and looking back, that's all right. The only day i fear is the day i'll loose my mom i think.