College essay

Michael Murphy
Mrs. Dills
Writers Workshop
October 30, 2007

         Type II Diabetes. At age eight its just another phrase with no meaning. That is until your brother is diagnosed with it. He was only six years old when it was discovered. My mom, being a nurse knew all the symptoms and feared the worst even before the results came back. Increase in thirst and urination, blurred vision, and weight loss. My family was crushed to hear that my brother had contracted this incurable disease. It may not affect me physically, but it does emotionally. I can clearly remember a specific incident in my childhood that dealt with my brother’s diabetes that changed my outlook on life.
         I was about ten years old. I woke up one Saturday morning and it seemed like any other. My dad and I were up and, my mom was just waking up when there was suddenly a very loud thump. We heard that it came from my brother’s room and didn’t think much of it at first. Then my mom saw my brother lying on the floor. But this was different from someone rolling out of bed. My brother had gone into a seizure due to a low blood sugar. I don’t even like to imagine what would have happened if my mom wasn’t a nurse with experience in that sort of situation. My mom rushed up to him and pushed him up to a sitting position and tried to wake him. He wouldn’t respond, and my mother noticed he had stopped breathing. At this point, I was frozen to the floor unable to move.
         My father rushed into our kitchen to get the one thing that could save my brothers life; an injection of instant-glucose. He rushed into my brothers bedroom, urged by my mothers screams that he had stopped breathing. By then I had gotten well out of my parents way in complete shock and disbelief at what was happening to my brother. I began to wonder, would he survive? Could my brother actually die in an instant like this? My mother was injecting the glucose into my brother’s arm and my father was on the phone with 911. Within minutes EMS was in front of my house bringing a stretcher up to my brothers room.
         I clearly remember looking out the front door, down the street for the ambulances as my father told me to do as my parents sat with my brother. I remember looking out that door and not being able to comprehend how this had happened in a second of time. By the time EMS had arrived my brother was breathing and stable from involuntary spasms. When he was loaded on the stretcher he had regained consciousness and my mother started to cry even harder as my brother asked what had happened.
         My extremely emotional mother wouldn’t leave my brothers side and went with him to the hospital in the ambulance. As she left my father and I, already scared more than we’ve ever been in our lives, rushed to get dressed and get over to Albany Memorial hospital. My entire family can be thankful that my brother came out of the hospital with no complications and only a lesson learned on how careful he has to be for the rest of his life. This was hopefully the only time I’ll ever have to experience this first hand. To this day I can feel proud of my parents and of the hospital for saving my brothers life.