My girlfriend and I went to do a welfare check on a friend and found her dead on the couch

Which is probably part of why Kentucky Derby racehorses are worth so much!

 

Emily cheated death twice before she actually did pass away. When she was 12 years old, which would have 2000 or 2001, she got appendicitis. Emily had an incredibly high threshold for pain, and the abdominal pain was largely ignored. Her appendix actually burst, and her parents found her unconscious in her bed. Doctors did not think she was going to make it, but they did an emergency appendectomy and she pulled through. Emily got to meet the ambulance crew who had rushed her to the hospital and saved her life. She was inspired to become an EMT, and was in this profession until injuries from a horseback riding accident brought that to an end. Her parents also bought her Declan (the horse seen in the pictures that I posted) not long after she recovered from the appendectomy.

At the end of 2020, when she was still living with Amanda and her ex, Emily’s skin started to turn yellow and Amanda suspected liver failure; Amanda forced Emily to go to the hospital, but she became impatient and attempted to leave. Amanda took the car keys and forced her to wait until a doctor could see her. It is a very good thing that Amanda forced her to stay, because it turns out that she was in fact in liver failure. The doctor said that Emily would have been dead in hours if she had gone home; Emily drank socially before, but she hadn’t consumed alcohol in years at the time of her death. The reason her liver failed is because she had her gallbladder removed years prior, and that procedure wasn’t done properly. Something involving her bile ducts was causing her liver to fail.

Luckily, correcting the issue was easy through surgery and Emily’s life was saved. Her liver suffered no permanent damage. If Amanda and Emily were still living together, no doubt Amanda would have forced Emily to go to the ER and she very well might still be here today. My guilt phase is largely over, because I didn’t talk to Emily that much, and Amanda didn’t suspect that something wrong until Emily had been gone for at least 14 hours. That means that at a minimum, she was dead before I woke up for work.

 

Sounds like she had more issues than just being overweight.
Some people just have bad genes.

My mother has some type of auto-immune disease.
My brother has has High Cholesterol. He's had it since he was 13.

As far as I know, I'm ok.
They say my blood pressure run low compared to most people.
But it's never been a concern. I haven't passed out,

I haven't been to a regular Dr. since 2018 or 2019.
Nothing hurts.......so I haven't needed to go.

 

Actually, both of her parents are quite healthy. Her dad plays tennis and works out, and her mom runs marathons including the Boston Marathon. The appendix was just bad luck. She did have many more issues than just being overweight, but I still believe what outright killed her was the domino effect touched off by two medications reacting.

 

Ten days ago, I learned that a woman I'd known for almost twenty years was dead, and catching a glimpse of her once the lights in her condo were turned on likely changed my life forever. Up until the moment the lights came on, I thought she was unconscious and in distress but still alive. My therapist said that I would largely get over what I've seen in about two weeks, and it would as. It has been ten days, and things are definitely better for Amanda and me. I can't quite put my finger on my emotions, but while I know that my friend died, it's like I still can't believe that I found her body. I know that I did find her body, but that it's like I haven't caught up with that reality yet. What's going on here?!?!

 

I'd say the fact that her death was sudden and unexpected, and you finding her in that state, is what it wrong.
Our body and mind don't typically respond well to "new" and unexpected things.
You just have to find your way of dealing with it.

I think you will get better with time.
I'm quite sure the same "feelings" happen for Police, Paramedics, Firefighters and Soldiers when they find their first "dead person".

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood
@steelcity2

Almost two weeks since we found Emily, and I am doing a lot better. Amanda is coping, but still struggling; I think the worst part of this whole thing is that we actually found her body. The actual funeral, held last Monday, was private for immediate family only. The service for friends will be this Monday, and my boss is letting me come into work late so I can go. Amanda's car is out of commission until Monday, so I will be picking her up from work and taking her directly to the service. By the time Emily's service is over, the PT Cruiser should finally be ready!

I still cannot really believe that I actually found a dead body, much less the body of someone I've known for almost two decades! It also does not help that the autopsy results will not be in for a few months, nor does it help that we are still waiting for Amanda's birth mother's autopsy results!

Regardless of what we've seen, without a doubt we have done a very good thing; Emily may not have been found for days if Amanda hadn't had that intuition, and Hannah could have met a tragic end too. Hannah was probably only alone in that condo with Emily's body for 12 to 18 hours. Without a doubt, we saved her life!

 

I would like to thank everybody for their support. The private "family only" funeral was on May 12th, but Emily's dad was kind enough to arrange a second memorial gathering at the funeral home for several of her friends. My boss let me have half the day off so I could attend. The fear of waking up at night and finding a dead body in my room have largely subsided, and I have come to terms with Emily's death. What I have not come to terms with is that I actually found a dead body, which is something that I never thought would happen. I've been to six open casket funerals that I can remember between November 2007 and February 2024, obviously all people I knew (my grandpa, my cousin's husband's grandparents, a neighbor, and a former teacher's son). Aside from the aforementioned open casket funerals, I also went to Body Worlds at the Franklin Institute in early 2006. Obviously, those bodies were all heavily preserved and I did not know any of them.

My paternal grandpa (who my cousins and I called "Pop-pop") died in November 2007 at the age of 71, from lung cancer. This was the second funeral I'd been to, and the first open casket; I was 18 years old and probably handled it a lot better than I would have five or ten years earlier. I saw people holding Pop-pop's hand and touching his face, among other things, so curiosity got the best of me and I touched his hand. It felt cold, but it wasn't gross at all.

Pop-pop was diagnosed with lung cancer in either late 2005 or early 2006 if I remember correctly, and they decided to end chemo when they discovered in October 2007 that the cancer had spread to his liver. We knew that he likely wouldn't live to see Thanksgiving, so we decided to have Thanksgiving on the first Saturday in November because that's when all the family could come out. That was on November 3rd, 2007. On the afternoon of November 4th, my parents called me downstairs and my dad told me that Pop-pop had passed away. There were two viewings on Thursday, November 8th (I went to both and stayed the whole time, even though my parents said I didn't have to go at all and one of them would be willing to take me back to the house if I wanted to leave). The actual funeral was on the morning of Friday, November 9th. I ended up being a pallbearer because one of the previously selected pallbearers had something come up and couldn't be there. My grandma didn't want immediate family to be pallbearers, but she relented and let me do it. I helped load Pop-pop's casket into the hearse at the funeral home, and helped unload it at the cemetery. It was one of the greatest honors I've ever had, and if Emily hadn't been cremated, I was going to ask her dad if I could be a pallbearer.

I can still see Pop-pop lying in the casket to this day, but it doesn't bother me. What I'm experiencing with Emily is that I know she obviously passed away and have come to terms with that fact, but I still don't think that I've fully come to terms with that face I saw her dead body. I seriously thought, up until the first responders kicked the door in and turned on the lights, that she was simply unconscious and in some sort of distress. Once the lights came on inside the condo, it still didn't fully register that I was staring at my friend's dead body until the cop came out and told us that she was gone. I knew something was very wrong as soon as the lights were turned on, and this was enhanced when the cop shut the blinds so we couldn't see inside, but it didn't really hit us until the cop came back outside and delivered the news.

Also not helping the situation is the fact that Amanda's birth mother passed sometime around Valentine's Day this year, and we still haven't gotten the autopsy results. We were told that it would be 8 to 12 weeks until the results came back, but it has now been about 13 weeks! Emily's autopsy results won't be back until sometime this summer!

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood
@steelcity2
@TnShooter

On another note, we think that Amanda's birth mother knew she was dying but didn't want to tell anybody. She was a cancer survivor and HIV positive. In either late 2024 or early 2025, Amanda's mother called her while we were at my house and asked to talk to me privately (she didn't have my phone number). I honored her request, and she rather aggressively demanded to know when I was marrying her daughter, because she wasn't getting any healthier or any younger.

FUN FACT: I am still on my dad's health insurance as a result of being autistic and am allowed to remain on it indefinitely; I plan on getting my own insurance eventually, but in the meantime I really need my dad's insurance. Getting married is one of several things that can cause me to lose the insurance, so I'm waiting until I get my shit together. Unfortunately, Amanda's mother didn't fully grasp this concept.

That said, we believe that she either had cancer or full blown AIDS, and that's what ultimately killed her.

 

Marriage is just a word. (to me)
The feeling are either their, or they are not.
The word itself makes no difference.......

Marriage is cheap.
Divorce is expensive....

I say, skip all of it......

 

I lose it when I’m 65, if I end up keeping it. What happens is that I have to apply for SSDI every four years or so, and get rejected, in order to keep my dad’s insurance. Thankfully, I’ve always made too much money to qualify.

 

These things take time my friend. Keep leaning on your support and taking that next step.

 

I have known people that do that..some are very private about it, or prideful..or just their way.

Totally this. One of the reasons I haven't job hunted, my insurance is damn good.

 

So, just about five days before Emily presumably died, I had a conversation with her via text message. She was saying how she had a double respiratory infection or something, and I brushed it off as her overreacting. Emily had mental issues in addition to her obvious mental issues, and I kinda thought she was just crying wolf to get attention. I am feeling rather guilty about how I just brushed her off.

 

You can’t place any blame on yourself. it’s not in your control to manage anyone’s health beside your own and even then, we can’t control every aspect about our health.
Coming from someone who has had similar thoughts when a close friend of mine passed away unexpectedly, it’s really important to acknowledge that any regrets you may have are probably coming from a place of just wishing she was still alive/love. Be thankful that you got to be on the crazy ride that’s life at the same time as Emily and that despite any differences you were her friend and that sort of thing is priceless. Just my 2 cents and not trying to preach as I’m no expert.

 

So sorry. It is awful to lose those that we love

 

Knowing that someone died vs being the one to see it or be there for it are very different experiences.

It's never pretty.

 

As stated in the original message, mine and Amanda's relationship with Emily was very tumultuous for the last two years of her life. Amanda met Emily in 2005, and I met Emily in 2006. Amanda and I met in 2009, just not through Emily. I would say that golden years of my friendship with Emily were about 2006 to 2012. She had a nasty horseback riding accident in 2012 that Amanda and I believe resulted in a traumatic brain injury. I saw the last semblance of the Emily I knew pre-TBI in about 2015-2016, and then I stopped talking to her in 2017 because she was annoying and obnoxious. I somehow started talking to her again in the summer of 2021, and it was through her that I reconnected with Amanda. I started talking to Amanda nonstop in September 2021, but her then-fiancé didn't take too kindly to that and put a stop to it...

A series of shitty events took place between October 2021 and January 2023 that sent Emily off the deep end, and by the time I reconnected with Amanda and ultimately started dating her, the Emily who I knew and loved was not there anymore. Emily was very jealous of mine and Amanda's relationship and said some very nasty things about me early on in that relationship. My relationship with Amanda almost didn't make last through the summer of 2023, because of Emily!

My longtime followers will remember that Emily's dad helped her get an apartment back here in Pennsylvania, and I borrowed a 16-foot trailer from my employers to help them move down here. I towed that trailer behind my high-mileage 4-banger Tacoma and managed to get 17 MPG!

Needless to say, before the summer was over, we were sick of Emily's shit and by the grace of God were able to get Amanda her own place. Amanda and I both severed ties with Emily for nearly a year, but by December we had allowed her back into our lives.

 

It's never easy, my man. It's especially never easy when you experience the full spectrum of a person, both happy and erm, aggravating.

I personally prefer to contextualize things as moments. I am grateful for the good moments I shared with the people who have departed our universe, and will remember them with fondness. I will forget the bad moments, as they no longer have lessons to apply in my life. Rather, I will take the best of them, celebrate what we shared, and share it with others in the same manner. Keep the best parts of us living on in small pieces, little quirks, mannerisms, tall tales, inside jokes. And I let the rest go. It honors them and it imparts a much needed dose of wisdom unto me.

I wish I could say that it gets easier with practice. Fortunately, it doesn't. It hurts every time. But, I remain grateful for the time I had with friends no longer amongst, and I remind myself to appreciate the time I can still give to others.