Fourteen Years

Today is my oldest daughter's Fourteenth Birthday.

Or it would be, if she were alive.

Poetry Rose died of a barbiturate overdose, just a dose and a half of what was prescribed for her, in the wee hours of the morning on May 20, 2009. She was ten years old.

Suffering from multiple tumors that were causing her severe pain, PoRo's doctor had told her father and I that chemotherapy would just prolong her suffering, and wrote us a prescription for her of high dose barbiturates, a dose so high that I once tried it and found myself sobbing and "out of body" for hours. The doctor informed us that if we tried to pursuit chemotherapy from another physician or cancer treatment center, he would personally report us to child services for child abuse. Our parents also threatened us with a report to child services if we did nothing and just let our daughter die.

It was a horrible time for me, for Dennis, for our family.

PoRo mimicked my medication taking. She had watched me take pain medication for a long, long time (since July of 2003), and she was certain if I did it, it had to be right. I was her hero, another mistake she made. In mimicking what I do many times with my invalid pain medications, she took just a half a dose higher than was recommended, and it killed her.

Her death was ruled an accident.

Dennis and I both turned ourselves in to the police after the paramedics took PoRo's body away. We blamed ourselves, and each other, at the same time. No charges were brought because PoRo had written in her journal hours before taking the fatal dose, that she had saw not only myself take multiple pain medicine pills, but her father usually over medicated, and so did her cousin Jess. We were all fine. She was never aware that medicine could be lethal, and if you died in this world, there's no reset button, and you don't get to come back. She thought she had super powers, as she thought the same about me, because she had beaten cancer three years before she died. I still cry for her because she died like an unwanted animal. With the same overdose they get. Except she wasn't an animal, and she wasn't unwanted. She was dearly loved and much wanted.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of her and the situation, and how tragic it turned out. There are many days that I wonder if there was something I could have done differently, that would make her alive to this day. When she was seven, she had several tumors removed from her breast, and was given a clean bill of health after six months. But the cancer came back. It has a nasty, bad habit of doing that. I was happy when Chloe's tumors were declared benign. I don't think I could live through another innocent life being sick, weakened by a disease that is almost always fatal.

Because they were the best of friends on this Earth, in this Life, PoRo and Jess were interred next to one another, so their spirits need not wander too far to be together again.

Every February 25th since her death, I make a birthday cake for dessert at dinner time. I made one this year. As a tributing tradition, we, as a family, all blow out the candles on the cake at the same time. My hope is that she will be remembered because of this tradition.

I'd also like to point out, even though it is irrelevant in this whole thing, that a freak from the far ends of the web harassed me to tears over me taking extra pain medication for my severe pain. They mocked me, telling me that my kids were going to get into my medicine and die from drug overdoses. That person was not right. In both telling me that I was this apathetic bitch who partied down on prescription pain killer, and in accusing me of not caring for my kids. I care for my family. Just because I don't update my blog every day with how much I love and cherish them doesn't mean that I do not feel it, that I do not care for them. I don't know where that person (or her other two personalities are, the ones that pretended to be my friend(s) to get info out of me) is now, but if she does want to come mock me for her being "right" I really don't care. I don't have to let her comments through. And I can ban her second set of IPs as well.

Oh, and if he were alive, George Harrison would be 70 today.

Today is my oldest daughter's Fourteenth Birthday.

Or it would be, if she were alive.

Poetry Rose died of a barbiturate overdose, just a dose and a half of what was prescribed for her, in the wee hours of the morning on May 20, 2009. She was ten years old.

Suffering from multiple tumors that were causing her severe pain, PoRo's doctor had told her father and I that chemotherapy would just prolong her suffering, and wrote us a prescription for her of high dose barbiturates, a dose so high that I once tried it and found myself sobbing and "out of body" for hours. The doctor informed us that if we tried to pursuit chemotherapy from another physician or cancer treatment center, he would personally report us to child services for child abuse. Our parents also threatened us with a report to child services if we did nothing and just let our daughter die.

It was a horrible time for me, for Dennis, for our family.

PoRo mimicked my medication taking. She had watched me take pain medication for a long, long time (since July of 2003), and she was certain if I did it, it had to be right. I was her hero, another mistake she made. In mimicking what I do many times with my invalid pain medications, she took just a half a dose higher than was recommended, and it killed her.

Her death was ruled an accident.

Dennis and I both turned ourselves in to the police after the paramedics took PoRo's body away. We blamed ourselves, and each other, at the same time. No charges were brought because PoRo had written in her journal hours before taking the fatal dose, that she had saw not only myself take multiple pain medicine pills, but her father usually over medicated, and so did her cousin Jess. We were all fine. She was never aware that medicine could be lethal, and if you died in this world, there's no reset button, and you don't get to come back. She thought she had super powers, as she thought the same about me, because she had beaten cancer three years before she died. I still cry for her because she died like an unwanted animal. With the same overdose they get. Except she wasn't an animal, and she wasn't unwanted. She was dearly loved and much wanted.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of her and the situation, and how tragic it turned out. There are many days that I wonder if there was something I could have done differently, that would make her alive to this day. When she was seven, she had several tumors removed from her breast, and was given a clean bill of health after six months. But the cancer came back. It has a nasty, bad habit of doing that. I was happy when Chloe's tumors were declared benign. I don't think I could live through another innocent life being sick, weakened by a disease that is almost always fatal.

Because they were the best of friends on this Earth, in this Life, PoRo and Jess were interred next to one another, so their spirits need not wander too far to be together again.

Every February 25th since her death, I make a birthday cake for dessert at dinner time. I made one this year. As a tributing tradition, we, as a family, all blow out the candles on the cake at the same time. My hope is that she will be remembered because of this tradition.

I'd also like to point out, even though it is irrelevant in this whole thing, that a freak from the far ends of the web harassed me to tears over me taking extra pain medication for my severe pain. They mocked me, telling me that my kids were going to get into my medicine and die from drug overdoses. That person was not right. In both telling me that I was this apathetic bitch who partied down on prescription pain killer, and in accusing me of not caring for my kids. I care for my family. Just because I don't update my blog every day with how much I love and cherish them doesn't mean that I do not feel it, that I do not care for them. I don't know where that person (or her other two personalities are, the ones that pretended to be my friend(s) to get info out of me) is now, but if she does want to come mock me for her being "right" I really don't care. I don't have to let her comments through. And I can ban her second set of IPs as well.

Oh, and if he were alive, George Harrison would be 70 today.