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Finality: Julie's Story, Part Four (By Her Mother, Dory Elizabeth Uecker) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
Julie's story has a very sad ending. She ends up dying when she has another heart attack while in the Cardiac Unit of the Intensive Care Ward.
She was only 15 years old, a victim of anorexia nervosa. She was due to get out of the tenth grade in just a few days.
Oh, GOD!! Oh, GOD!!! WHY is this happening?? WHY my daughter?? WHY my baby??
She was only 15 years old!!
I cn't believe what has happened; the nurse has just told me that Julie Mae, my 15-year-old daughter, has died! DIED!! It CAN'T be; she was just a LITTLE GIRL of 15!!
I was at the cafeteria here at the hospital, getting myself some lunch, when I heard the code blue call go over the loudspeaker; but I had no idea that it was for my daughter; I thought it was for some older person or a young toddler or something; and I just didn't pay attention; but then I made my way back to the Cardiac Care ward; and there were doctors and nurses swarming the hall, and it was pure chaos. The door to my daughter's hospital room was flung open, and I saw people going in and out and pushing in equipment. That's when I got scared, really scared.
I went to go into the room--I remember screaming out Julie's name--, but then this tiny nurse on a cane held out her cane to prevent me from entering the room, and she said that I couldn't go in as Julie had developed a sudden problem; but they were working on her, and she was hoping that she would soon be okay. She said it was with her heart, but the doctor was in with her, and she was getting the help she needed. I tried to pump out more information from the tiny, dark-skinned nurse, but she said she couldn't tell me anything more, or else she could get into trouble from the administrative staff.
I tried to peek through the sea of nurses gathered in the hall; and I could see a brief glimpse of my daughter's lower half; you couldn't see the upper, for all the people surrounding her bed, and they were feverishly working on her. The alarms were going off, and the noise was deafening. I then heard one of the nurses call out for the little nurse, and the little nurse disappeared into the room and quickly shut the door behind her. What I had seen of Julie, I didn't like: she was naked, totally naked; and her color looked horrible. I knew immediately that her heart had stopped beating, and the doctors and nurses in the room were trying to save her life. A doctor was kneeling on the bed, and he was pushing on her chest; and another doctor was at the head of the bed doing something; I don't know what, but he was doing something.
It seemed like minutes, yet it seemed like hours, before the door finally opened, and the little nurse emerged; and from the sad look in her dark eyes, I knew. I instantly knew. The news was as bad as you could possibly get; and that was that Julie, my baby girl, was dead. She had died of what appeared to be a massive heart attack; and no matter what they did, or how hard they tried, they just could not bring her back.
I started crying, and I started screaming; I remember falling to the ground, screaming, "NO!! NO!! Oh, my God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! NOT MY BABY!! Oh, my God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"; and I felt hands grabbing me. It was the little nurse. She sat down beside me, and she took my head into her lap, and I started crying in spite of myself.
It was after this when I sat down in the hall, and tried to get my bearings together. I had to be strong for her father (he didn't know yet that Julie had died) and to tell the news to him and to her younger brothers and sisters. I had to make that call, the call that would probably be the hardest one I would ever make in my life. I also got good and mad because it was Julie's fault that this had happened, and if she hadn't been so goddamned stubborn or hardheaded about this stupid dieting, she wouldn't be dead now, and I suddenly hated her for wanting to starve herself in the way she did. I didn't see anything wrong with her body; she was perfect to me just the way she was, but it started when some kid told her that she was fat, and she just sort of went crazy and went overboard.
Now I will have to call her father and tell him--and my other children--that their big sister won't be coming home, and that she won't be graduating from the tenth grade.
~To be continued*.
*although Julie's story has ended, you won't be hearing the last from her mother, Dory, as she comes to terms with her daughter's struggle with anorexia nervosa and ultimately the downward spiral that led to her death at the age of 15. There will be periodic updates from Dory E. Uecker.
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Reviewed by Simon Thurlow
5/30/2004
Unfortunately, society makes so many people feel they must go these extremes to be beautiful. The sadness is that the real beaut is within and not the shell in which the person is carried.
I know the struggle to stay in shape.....been abused about been fat at one time in my life mostly by my husband....and now he can't handle me being in good shape...it becomes a bad cycle...and I lost a massive 40kg = 88.2 lbs
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Oh, GOD!! Oh, GOD!!! WHY is this happening?? WHY my daughter?? WHY my baby??
