Sam had acquired a boat, and he suggested that we row it down Wolli Creek to Nanny Goat Hill.
It was a beautiful sun dappled day. We played chess, navigated the mangroves, and eventually arrived at a strange island with bats sleeping in trees and big pillars of leaves that formed a cave-liked shape around us.
My boating trip down Wolli Creek with my brother Sam is one of my truly cherished memories with him. I captured these moments with him on video and it has now become an extremely sad video for me to watch.
My brother Sam Treffry committed suicide 2 days ago. In his suicide note he revealed that he had been diagnosed with a very serious medical condition called ENS - Empty Nose Syndrome. This rare, incurable and extremely difficult to treat disease is so severe that it has many recorded cases of sufferers taking their own life. This information is all over the medical literature on ENS.
Sam described in his note that he had been forced to withdraw from his university course and had stopped work entirely. He had been unable to sleep and entered an extremely dark place. He hid all of this from our family and me.
My brother died at 34 years old. It’s unclear in his letter how long he knew about his ENS diagnosis, but it seemed to be a recent diagnosis and a rapid spiral after Sam sought various solutions in private for his incurable disease.
ENS can only be developed by routine nose operations that remove tissue. My brother had multiple nose surgeries in his teenage years for sinus issues and septum corrections. It apparently took a long time for his ENS symptoms to reach a critical level where Sam thought that he had to seek relief in death.
Prior to his death, my brother was working at a hospital and a hotel, studied a town planning degree and generally seemed happy, although he did constantly seem very tired. One of the symptoms of ENS is insomnia resulting from breathing difficulty.
Sam’s suicide was a devastating blow to my family. We never knew about his ENS diagnosis and we never got a chance to help him, with full knowledge of the suffering he was enduring.
I love you Sam. I miss you so much. I wish you had reached out to me. I would have moved heaven and earth to take care of you. I would have ensured you received the treatment, love and care you needed, and you deserved.
…but you didn’t reach out. You chose to fight this battle alone and now you are gone. I will have to stay with our cherished memories now, until I see you on the other side where I know you are waiting for me and the rest of our family.
Until then, I’ll think of you always, Sam, and I’ll never forget what a brave, sensitive, hilarious, mischievous and mysterious person you were and still are.
For me, Sam, you haven’t truly left. You’ll live on in my thoughts, my dreams, my blood and amongst all the tears I’ve shed for you.
