I have been away from the cafe for a while. Busy with work, school, and home life. I just want to give an update on the family drama from last year and to thank you again for your wise words about disengaging and letting things go.
As you may recall, MIL disowned my hubby last October because she was told not to visit him in the hospital. He did not contact them for 6 months. H found out in April that his sister was still driving his niece to work every day with the excuse that FILs truck needed tires. (They both live with H’s parents). His sister doesn’t work, lives off SSI which means she has no money. His niece just got a new job and didn’t have enough money for tires. H decided to order the tires and had them delivered to the car shop near FILs house. H called his father and told him that the tires were at the shop- Happy Birthday. He told him that this was a gift to help the truck become the work truck it needed to be. Both FIL/MIL were happy to hear from H and asked if they were expected to visit us. H said no. This was a no strings attached gift for the family.
This opened the line of communication. Then we found out in May that FIL has cancer. First, they thought it was stage 3 lung cancer. A few weeks later it was bumped to Stage 4 lung cancer and then 2 weeks after that FIL had to have emergency surgery on his leg. They had to put a rod in his left femur because of bone cancer. Over the next few weeks, H and FIL had numerous conversations about chemo and radiation. Each time H would ask if FIL wanted him to come down to help. Each time the answer was no.
Around the same time as H’s family drama, we found out that H’s cancer was not being controlled by the chemo pills he had been taking for over a year. He had to have a port put back in and go back onto chemo for a heavy-duty regimen. This was a serious blow. Two weeks ago, the results from H’s latest CT scan showed 3 more growths- small about 1mm each but still more. The doctor changed his chemo again hoping that this will have better results.
Instead of asking, H told FIL that we were coming down to visit. We were there for 3 days. H went with FIL/MIL to the chemo and radiation appointments. It made his father (and mother) very happy. I was very surprised that when she saw me for the first time on Tuesday she actually cried and gave me a hug. She was very happy to see us and the kids (who took off work for this visit). She hadn’t realized that H had been going through this chemo rollercoaster since 2014. I told her that one of the things she needs to do is to get her H out of bed and outside. Have him get some sun and walking in. Of course, this is hard to do with the new rod in his leg but he can walk short distances.
We also found out that FIL qualifies for Keytruda but each shot costs $6,000. They are looking to see if they can get a grant or something to help pay for the treatments.
I told MIL that one of the challenges that the kids and I work on with my H is to keep him in a positive place. Sometimes that means you have to kick him in the butt. When we were leaving the two of us had a nice 15-minute conversation. Told her she needed to make sure she takes care of herself, that her daughter and granddaughter can help do some of the things for her H. That it won’t help him if she ends up in the hospital. Sharing is caring. We left them Thursday and told them we would be back for Thanksgiving. Overall it went better than I thought it would.
Again, I thank you for your wise words about not sending letters, to let things go, and let my H handle his relationship. It seems to be back on track.