A bit of history, my brother has completely faded and has been out for many years now. He has been smoking cigarettes, playing golf and going target shooting with worldly friends and workmates, and having joyful relations with as many women as he can. He got sick and they had to amputate about half of his foot. He got gangrene from a cut and an arterial restriction. Well, late last week they told him tha he is anemic and would need blood. He refused.
Well, he is a really stubborn Sumbitc* ..... His GF called me and told me he was being silly. Then another friend called me and told me that his hemoglobin was down to 6.5 and if he didn't get blood soon he would die. His kidneys also began to fail. He called me and told me he would die soon and if I would handle his arrangements and get his stuff and distribute it as I saw fit.
When i asked him why he was refusing it considering his past few years of living. He said that he has done so much wrong, that he wants to do ONE thing right. Well, we talked and he asked me to tell him the truth. That is the beauty of our relationship. We will sugar coat it if needed, but when we ask the other for blunt force truth, we get it with no punches pulled. So I lit him up. I told him to tell me what he felt and he asked me for what I thought he should do.
I will not tell anyone what to do, but I assured him that nether me, our mom or sissy would judge him either way. He cried and thanked me. He was so scared that we would treat him like a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses would. I told him that when he was out banging women like a screen door in a hurricane, no one judged him and no one would either. He cried as did I because weboth reached into ourselves like anyone rarely does. But this is his life on the line here.
He took the blood and his hemoglobin was up to 8.3 in a few hours, and his O2 was up 5 points on half as much O2 in his line.
I drove almost 600 miles round trip yesterday to see him and his gf hugged me and thanked me for kicking his ass and making him take the blood. Thing is she has no idea about our JW history. I didn't kick his ass, I just assured him of no shunning and he is getting better. It scares me when I think that after so many years out of the cult, he was still so scared of taking blood it almost killed him. He almost died for fear that we might shun him.
I am glad our family loves each other more than that.