The biggest tragedy I had was the loss of my daughter from neuromuscular disease in 2000, at age 46.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The death of my daughter is a subject I talk about briefly because there is nothing more tragic.
In 2001, my father finally succumbed to the bone cancer that had tortured him for seven years. His last weeks were a terrible, black icing on the cake, the agony, the slow twisting, thinning and snapping of his skeleton. Everything fell apart.
When I was 11, I spent eight months in the hospital with rheumatic fever and almost died.
When I was very young, my father had an accident. He fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his skull, and lost sight in one eye.
Probably the toughest time in my life was - was standing there with Ann as we hugged each other and the diagnosis came. And I was afraid it was Lou Gehrig's disease. As we came into the doctor's office, the brochures on his table there were Lou Gehrig's, ALS, and multiple sclerosis.
My life was very tenuous last year. My daughter's death, in March in 2007, was unexpected. It was a shock. I didn't know if I'd survive it.
In December 1988, my mother died of lung cancer. I died too. I couldn't function.
My life has been tragic and disastrous since birth.
The loss of my father was the most traumatic event in my life - I can't forget the pain.
When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.