Sally Evans, A'Seduction and her Dressage Team

Sally's Stories
 

Debbie... my sister

In March of 2007, Debbie was diagnosed with a tumour in her pancreas and only 14 months later on the 3^rd of May 2008 we held her funeral.

Cancer ended her life so short.

My sister Deb should have been here for another 20 years or so.

We all just assumed that Deb would be here for ages and grow old like normal, like all of us will, well, we think that we are going to grow old.

It was so sad to see my sister, a person who had already given so much to many people and effected parts of many lives to be taken on this journey. I guess it is a kind of journey. If you are diagnosed with cancer I suppose you would try to face it as positive as you could and challenge it as a chapter of your life, a bit like a journey. However, it may not lead you to a positive end. The experience I shared with my parents, Peter, and Deb’s partner Ruth, was not one I would like to go through myself.

It was not a very nice time at all. You just cannot believe it’s there growing in Deb’s body, and its going to be the end of her life and your time to share with her is now very limited.

It’s awful.

Back when the tumour was first found, Deb underwent an operation, which is called the ‘Whipple procedure’, and she came through it very well and the doctor said he was confident that he got all of the cancer cells. She is young and fit and strong and she should recover well, he said to my parents and I. Deb did recover well from the operation. It took a few months, but she seemed positive and ok.

Deb and Ruth still remained very positive and searched ways to fight the cancer and they were hopeful of recovery. Then she had to do the follow up chemotherapy, which Deb was told was just a standard thing to do after this type of surgery. I think the first few times were ok and all seemed to be fine, normal, then her blood was not right or something like that. No more chemo, they need to do more tests, and they found that she had an infection inside, so she went back in and had a second operation for this infection.

So then poor Deb had to recover from this one. Then more chemo again and more problems again. So more tests and scans, only this time they found out that the cancer was now in her liver. This was not good news. It was so incredibly sad to realise the cancer was growing in her body, and by about Christmas, there were a number of tumours in her liver which had grown little satellite ones around them. I saw the scans and could clearly  recognise the tumours. Seeing this gave me suddenly a very sad feeling. By this time, Deb frequently visited the hospital.

In March, Deb and Ruth had planned to go on a cruise around New Zealand. It was going to be the last trip they do together forever, and the girls knew it. Deb went from the hospital to the plane and to the ship. She got too sick at the last stage of the ten day cruise and ended up in the Melbourne hospital. ‘Red tape’ kept her there for about a week. This must have been a lonely and frustrating time for Deb, as Ruth had to fly home to attend to the cats and other things. So Deb was there, in hospital. I can remember being in hospital many times when I was young due to my burns, and I sometimes felt like I was in a prison, because I was stuck in there. You can’t walk free out of the hospital like everyone else can. So maybe I knew a little bit of how Deb felt there.

Ruth soon got her home to Brisbane where she went straight back into hospital. This was when Debbie suddenly really looked very sick, she had lost a lot of weight. She was very thin. Peter and I went to see Deb, and although Dad and my Aunty Joan had prepared us for what Deb looked like, it still was an unbelievable sight to see her so thin and weak. You almost did not recognise her as Debbie, even her voice was different sounding, older sort of and didn’t have the strength in it that Deb has. But yet she was bright and witty as usual.

Deb seemed to be ok, kind of. They had some photos of the cruise, me riding Basil and some other friends, up on a large board in her hospital room. On the laptop was a full show of all the photos of the whole NZ cruise. It was on this day that Deb informed Peter and I that she had decided to go home, and she will not return to the hospital again. Debbie wanted to die at home in comfortable surroundings with her soul partner, Ruth, and their two beloved cats, Korma and Saffie. Deb had been in this home for over 20 years. She had done many renovations to it and turned it into something that looks like a five star resort. It is a beautiful, very peaceful place. There were many a party held there, and lots of laughter shared.

Deb was home by the Tuesday and I was there on the Thursday and she seemed ok but pretty much stuck in bed and not eating very much. She was on pain relief drugs administered via a drip on a regulator and also by Ruth every few hours. Ruth had a complete record of Deb’s pain levels during the last few weeks and it was very sad to read this. You see, Deb had to tell Ruth what pain level she was having and it was a 1 to 10 scale, the 10 being the most unbearable pain that you could ever have. It was very upsetting and disturbing to see how many times she had hit the 10. I am crying horribly now just typing this. I am still so upset by all of this. I wish, I wish, I wish things had not been so horrible for such a lovely person, in her last months and days of her life. Little did I know that this would be the last time I can talk to my sister, the last time I see her eyes open.

Deb actually made it out of bed to sit at the dining table to have dinner with Ruth and I on the Thursday night. We talked about, now this is a bit funny, but we talked about life. Deb asked me, if Peter and I wanted to go on any holidays to other countries, but I said no not really, we just love spending time playing with our horses and riding Basil and maybe having a nice lunch at home - Peter makes a great brushetta.

Just five days later and only the night before I got there, Deb had gone into a semi unconscious state, now extremely weak, and she was not talking or eating or moving really. This was just so incredibly very sad. Her eyes were a little open, her mouth was open to breath and there were times when she seemed to respond to you or to Mum, Dad, or Ruth, if we said something. But we don’t really know. We wanted to believe that she was still in there in her tiny frame of a body, but you also didn’t want her to go through this sort of an ending either. As now reality started to set in and we all knew that the end was so close. Ruth was still incredible, so strong mentally and still appeared on the outside to be positive. I could hardly believe what was happening. During her last couple of weeks at home, the last and final stay at home, Deb was visited by lots of her friends and I am sure she was happy about that chance.

It was sad and emotional to see Deb in this state, where she remained for 6 days, till the following Tuesday when she passed away. Peacefully in spirit. I suppose that she did not feel too much pain, but how do we know. It was so extremely sad to see Deb slowly fade away till she was so tiny and weak, hardly any life left in her at all. It is very hard for everyone who visits to see her like this. Her breathing got more and more laboured, her heart must have been working triple hard. It is a slow and horrible death. Horrible, for everyone around her and horrible I think if Deb could have seen the way in which she slowly left all of us.

But you don’t have that choice at that stage.

“As strong as you are, tender you’ll go
I’m watching you breathing for the last time
A song for your heart but when it is quiet
I know what it means and I’ll carry your home”

Words from a song by James Blunt
I keep playing this song over and over
It just seemed to touch me
Because that’s exactly what happened, we watched her breathing for the last time.

Deb made so many friends, had so many friends.

The end, it was a bit spiritual, I feel. Peter and I had spent the day with her at her home on the Monday hardly sleeping at all that night, just as you can imagine, you are constantly thinking: has she gone. Tuesday she was still breathing. I phoned her (well Ruth) and asked her to tell Deb that it would be ok if her funeral happened to be on the Friday, which was my birthday. It’s ok, I said, tell Deb this please. Well within the hour, Debbie stopped breathing and died. She went to heaven. This exact same moment I was at home waiting for Peter to come home from work and just sort of thinking about what to have for dinner. I suddenly had an urge to write a eulogy for Deb. I was actually writing this, the phone rang, and Ruth said she was gone. 

My sister Debbie Evans was always the complete organiser, getting people together and having parties and gatherings of old friends and new friends. This was her. Everyone who came to visit Deb and Ruth, as soon as they walk in to the house, you were offered a chair and a glass of wine, sit, relax, have a chat. She loved it. So much so that the house that she bought 20 years ago, in Annie Street, Paddington in the heart of Brisbane, became a gathering place for friends and neighbours.

Deb developed the most ultimate in neighbourly love and friendship. All the neighbours in Annie Street developed a strong friendship with Deb and Ruth and through them, the other neighbours. Every Boxing Day Debbie and Ruth would have an open house for all neighbours to come over any time of the day to celebrate with the friends in Annie Street.

What an amazing person.

Deb through this created really loving friendships caring with neighbours. 

Deb even organised her own funeral. Maybe this sounds a bit strange, but when you really sit down and think about it, it is a fairly great thing to be able to do. We had a very informal and friendly ceremony at a beautiful quaint historic church near Paddington. She was surrounded by hundreds of friends and family. Then the wake in honour of her life was in the gardens right next door and Deb had champagne and strawberries and lots of nibbles, just exactly what she would do for any one of her parties.

When Deb drove off in the funeral car to be cremated, 200 earth friendly PURPLE baloons were given to all and we set them free, up into the beautiful clear blue sky. They looked a bit spooky, but very meaningful, as if we were letting go for Deb to travel the road to Heaven. As they floated up and up, they all seemed to stay together. She’ll have everyone organised in heaven by next week.

During the party, almost at the end of the afternoon, suddenly two purple balloons reappeared by themselves in the sky. I don’t know what to think of this.

I saw them, they were floating up, lonely, but together.

It’s a life changing thing…………… for this to happen.

I still find it hard to believe that she has gone, gone for ever, for the rest of my life.

I will never be able to talk to her or just phone her for some advice or even just to complain to her about life.

The last few years of my sister’s life were not exactly our closest. We had had a small disagreement and for some silly reason had not really spoken in depth to each other for some time. We were only just starting to forgive each other and get back to our normal relationship of sisterly love, and then she was diagnosed with the tumor.

It is a life changing experience.

Just knowing that we are so fragile and that this could happen to you tomorrow, you could be diagnosed or your husband or mum or dad. It is scary to think that you could go so fast from this earth, this life. So fragile.

So now things are differently weighted.

Time needs to be spent doing things we want to achieve
And spent doing things we want to do for love 

Last year, we had two lovely foals born, bred by A’Seduction, our beautiful stallion which we have had since he was 8 months old. We have done everything to Basil ourselves, from breaking him in to riding him through the levels in dressage and we are now riding all the Grand Prix movements. What an amazing journey.

My lovely coach, Sandra, once said to me, many years ago, something like: Dressage is a journey, a supreme connection you have between you and horse, and it will become such that you and this horse will almost be as one. You will just almost think the movement and the horse will be there, with you, it will be a magic feeling. I thought, yeah sure, but I do believe this has happened with this beautiful stallion we have. Him and I, we have that kind of connection, magic feeling, it’s beautiful. If you ever have this opportunity I recommend it, if this is one of your goals in life.

In memory of my sister, Debbie, I have given these two foals their competition names:

Scuba the colt from our beautiful purebred Trakehner mare, his name will be
A GOD SPEED YOUR LOVE.

Penny, the filly out of the most incredibly amazing moving thoroughbred mare, will be named A HEAVEN SENT.

So in about 3 years time if you see these names out competing you will know the story behind their names.

Love to you Deb
Will miss you heaps and heaps.

Debbie and Ruth at SDS