10 days back I lost my younger brother due to covid and secondary infections. I tried every possible thing best of my knowledge but nothing helped. I have already helped people in this infection but couldn't help my own brother. I am a doctor who couldn't save his brother who wanted to live and now I don't know how to live with this guilt ,failure this pain. Don't know how to face my parents. I just keep thinking about what else I could have done and where did I miss. It's getting difficult for me to take breaths also.
You did not fail. I am thankful you have helped so many people. I have so much admiration for what you do. Your profession is so difficult right now and I am so sorry your brother passed from Covid. Grieve, but please let this guilt go. Your parents need you.
I am so sorry about what you and your family have been going through. I am not a doctor, but I also feel like I failed my brother in not being able to figure out how to save him. We have thyroid trouble in the family, and my brother Jordan had low thyroid symptoms for a long time...but the typical tests would come out "normal." Jordan ended up in the hospital in 2015 when his liver was going bad...he never drank or anything, and I thought maybe it was tied to his thyroid trouble going undiagnosed & untreated for too long. I did some research, and found that there were a few studies tying low thyroid and liver malfunction together....and that sometimes if they run thyroid antibodies blood tests on someone, this can show there's a thyroid problem where the other tests fail. I fought with the doctors at the hospital to run these extra tests on Jordan...they finally did, and it showed he had Hashimoto's thyroid disease. He did begin thyroid medicine treatment for it, and it did help him to some extent....but not enough to help his liver repair itself, enough, even though they told me the liver can be a regenerative organ. Jordan ended up needing a liver transplant; we were low-income and this delayed him getting on the list, but we finally got things in order enough for him to get put on the list. He was in the hospital in March 2020, waiting for a transplant, which they said would come "any day." But it didn't, due to Covid. They stopped getting donor organs and doing transplant surgeries, right when he needed it. He passed away on March 31, and I'm still devastated, and wish I'd been smarter, sooner, on getting him extra thyroid tests earlier....I didn't know. I feel like I should've, and I also feel guilty and like a failure, even though people tell me I shouldn't feel like this. I feel I let him down, so badly. And it's extra bad, because he's the last close relative from my immediate family--and we tried to look out for each other, and he helped me. My health isn't good, either, from thyroid. I just want to say that I know how you feel, in some ways. It's really hard, and I guess some religions say that God decides when our time is up, no matter what we do or not. I struggle with that, but they said the same thing in both the Grief Share group I was in (which is church based, but one of the few things I could find available in my area), and the Rabbi who helped me with my brother said the same thing (we are Jewish.) If I'm having a better day where I can connect with information like this, it helps me to think of this....that God or a higher power is in charge, and we do our best, but in the end, the final call is not ours. I am sure you did a lot to help your brother....sometimes, we just can't pull it off. I know I still hurt terribly about this, but I am trying to find some solace in that maybe God, for whatever reason that I cannot understand, decided this. And it's really hard. My best to you....don't know if anything I've written will help you, but I'm trying. It does help me to go to grief support groups online when I can, because others are going through similar things.....I think this site has online meetings which aren't expensive, or there are others, too. Or if you belong to a religious organization, they might have some extra grief counseling, too. Hang in there. Sally D.
