Bipolarbear21: Yes, I do have bipolar disorder myself. Why would I even comment if I don't?

Someone in an earlier post (and I can't check right now because of the format I'm posting from) made a comment that cancer doesn't affect people's personalities like bipolar does. I simply tried to correct a common misunderstanding which you just confirmed in your post. To say that sure cancer patients deal with depression and perhaps some suicidal thoughts but that is the extent of it is to place all cancers and cancer patients in the same box. If someone said all people with bipolar disorder are the same, people around here would be incensed or in the least work to correct the misconception. That was all I was doing.

My sister died a year ago tommorow, and writing this post is taking a very long time because my hands won't stop shaking. I'm way too close to this topic right now. Due to a blood disorder directly resulting from the chemo she received to treat her breast cancer, she underwent a bone marrow transplant. She had more chemo to kill her immune system prior to the transplant. Because she had no immune system, an inborn virus that we all have attacked her brain, leaving her with absolutely no short-term memory. I had no idea how much memory and personality are connected until that day. I think I do have a better grasp of the effects of Alzheimer's on patients and families.

Overnight, my sister as I had known her my entire life was gone. The once funny and confident woman became depressed and frightened and confused, not because she was dying (she didn't remember why she was there at all) but because she didn't understand what was going on, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know that team of men and women who had been in her room every day for months. She fell into fits of violence because of all of these changes to her memory. She had no memory even of her grandson. She could not be left alone because if she wandered out of her room she was at risk of exposure to infection, so I spent weeks sleeping in her hospital room terrified that I wouldn't hear her get up in the night.

We physically lost my sister a year ago, but we lost her months before that when she ceased to be who she really was. And she never had a chance. No therapy or mood stabilizers or antidepressants would ever give her the opportunity to come back to stability.

There is so much talk on this thread about who is right and who is wrong. People deal with this illness,which presents differently in each of us. Perhaps more understanding that we are each on our own journey needs to be acknowledged rather than saying someone who uses "I am" is over-identifying with the illness, or that those of us who prefer "I have" are simply being politically correct or are in denial somehow.