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--- Major Rant (http://www.gatchamania.net/threadid.php?threadid=4838)
Posted by amethyst on 25-03-2015 at 02:08:
Major Rant
Sorry for my inactivity, I've been lurking, but not much else. However, life has built up to the point that I need to vent, and at least here, I won't offend family.
Warnings for:
Language
Family Bull Shit
Medical squickyness
So family first....
My brother, wonderful selfish ass, remarried the cheating tart and they moved to Texas in November leaving me to deal with mom. Evidently they expected that the offer to take her with them would be taken seriously. Personally, I think it was offered because they knew she'd reject it, absolving them of responsibility. I'm seriously considering tagging them in a nasty Facebook post.
My mother is going to drive me to drink. For the last two months or more she has been complaint about a painful lump on her back that has prevented her from walking very far. She got that removed today, and proceeded to tell me that the lump was not painful and that she can't walk because she gets out of breath. This is the first I've heard of that complaint. She can't remember what she had for breakfast, she significantly reduced both food and liquid intake, because nothing tastes right. We go to the doctor and tells the doctor everything is fine. I'm worried that she is depressed as most of this started around the holidays and my lovely brother leaving at Thanksgiving. However I know she'd tell the doctor that she is not depressed and feels fine.
My cousin has come to stay with her, and while is helps to ease my burden, it has created its own problem. My cousin was widowed two years ago. Since then she has wanted to scatter her husband's ashes at a Fort Bragg. In this time no one stepped up to help her. So when she came up, I offered to take her up, she has no income, on a weekend when my daughter would be playing softball up there. She liked the idea and posted it on Facebook. Her daughters in law have invited themselves, along with their mother and children, and her best friend has invited herself as well. Where the fuck where these people the lady two years! I can't afford the trip like this. I won't tell family no, but really, they should get their own campsite. As for her best friend, she negates me going, if my cousin can drive her up in her truck, what am I going for? I can't afford the trip on my own, I don't want to drive on my own, and I can't be around her friend, I've seen chimneys who don't smoke as much as she and she doesn't care where or when she lights up.
No good deed goes unpunished. I risk being a bitch or ending up in the emergency room with an asthma attack and nasty headache. I hate being a bitch, but really must put my health first.
Speaking of emergency rooms, now is the time for the medical rant, definitely not for the faint of heart, though I will try to keep the squick to a minimum.
My knee is not healed, the doc now wants me to have an MRI which I can't afford, but I'm getting around okay with walking sticks and the pain is manageable. It seems like I get one thing working and something else wants to act up. My thyroid gets fixed, my knee goes out. My knee gets manageable, I develop a cyst, sort of.
I have had two small Bartholin cysts. That is likely TMI, so I'll not explain what they are and leave it to the curious to google. Normally, they are painless. Thursday morning, I noticed one was a bit swollen and had a bit of discharge. By Friday night it was the size of a large marble and painfull. I spent the weekend in pain hoping to get into the clinic on Monday, no such luck so I had to go to the ER. The anesthetic was excruciating, but not as bad as the catheter to drain the cyst, even after the anesthesia. Trust me, that is the most painful experience I've ever had. Worse than my knee and worse than the back labor that kept me up with my first pregnancy. If you have never had one, pray that you never get one.
For those of you who stuck with this, thank you! It is nice to know we have a safe place to vent.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by mylari on 25-03-2015 at 02:55:
*hugs* Man, when it rains it pours, huh? Not sure that there is anything I can do to help, but at least you have a safe place to let it all out.
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Find me on the web at Mylari's Anime Website
Posted by littlewolf on 25-03-2015 at 06:11:
REALLY BIG HUG sunshine,
I think the universe is having " shit and giggles " at us all, at the moment..
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May the bad things get lost on the way to you door!
Posted by ElectricWhite on 25-03-2015 at 07:52:
RE: Major Rant
Geez, Ame, I wish we could find a way to stop this epidemic of getting bashed in the head with so much fertilizer! 
I also wish I could do more than keep you in my thoughts and prayers as far as all your medical issues are concerned. Back when I first became disabled, I couldn't afford anything, either, and I had an epic battle to get my Social Security Disability benefits. If I'd lost that fight, I wouldn't be here now...even with Dad's help, there was no way I could have afforded my prescriptions, let alone any doctor's office visits or medical procedures.
I hope you've been telling your mother's doctor what she's been saying and doing, even though she's been contradicting you. She's not the first to show this kind of behavior, and she won't be the last. If he's worth his salt, he will take what you say seriously, since you are with her far more than he is. (And I hate to say this, but, based on what you've said, I think she might be showing some early signs of dementia.)
When it comes to family dynamics, you will always be painted as the bad guy by those individuals who act as though they are nothing more than toxic waste that's been dumped into the human gene pool. Having said that, I'd suggest that you go ahead and let people know how you really feel about the situation. It won't make you popular (you're damned if you do, damned if you don't no matter what), but at least you won't have the additional stress of keeping your opinion bottled up until it eats away at your innards. And, in the long run, who can really, truly fault you for being honest?
Now, as for this next part, I will be using some -- how should I put it? -- heavily spiced language. So, I hope you brace yourself before reading on.
When you wrote:
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it was a fight for me to keep from screaming out the answer: Because you -- unlike those sheep-fucking pieces of shit -- have been there for her! (I won't call them bitches or sons of bitches because all that does is insult dogs...and no puppy deserves that kind of insult!) So you don't have the financial resources they have, big deal. While she's been helping you, you've been someone she could talk to, a shoulder to cry on if she needed. No amount of money can replace that.
Okay, this looks like a good place to get off my soap box. Don't forget you've got an army of well-wishers in your corner. And I hope you'll keep us in the loop, okay?
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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Ray Bradbury
Posted by msannomalley on 25-03-2015 at 11:54:
I've learned, the hard way (because I can be downright stubborn and not in a good way), that your own health and well being trumps everything else, and if that means you have to be a bitch to people in order to maintain your own well-being, then you have to be a bitch. If people don't like that you're being a bitch, that's their problem. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing your own boundaries.
I can sympathize with your parent situation. My parents are not in the greatest of health, either, and they insist on living out in the middle of BFE because my father is anti-social and hates people. Granted, I live in another state from them and my youngest brother is the closest to them, and I'm afraid that they're going to be so stubborn that something will happen that basically forces my brother into having to take care of them. He's got two little kids already. 
Hugs and I hope things get better. 
__________________
Il mio aliscafo è pieno di anguille
Posted by ChrisW on 25-03-2015 at 13:48:
Amethyst: I'm so sorry you're going through all this. Your brother definitely sounds like a selfish twit, or he's just so desperate to remarry that he'll screw his family to do what she wants. I definitely agree that you need to tell her doctor what she's been telling you ... the only way to figure out if this is just depression or if she's lying because she doesn't want to deal with the doctor (or if it's also dementia playing into the mix) is to investigate it. I will say that like the commercials say, depression really can cause weird, roving pain. My husband gets that symptom. I'm really glad I don't!
It sounds like enough people are going with your cousin now that you can thank them for it and say that something's come up and you're glad they can take her. It's a little passive aggressive, I admit, but that's one option. I do agree that in general swallowing everything rather than speaking your mind ultimately does more harm than good. I've been taking mental health classes and that's one of the things that gets repeatedly mentioned, especially in the Assertiveness class.
I'm really sorry to hear about your knee. Chronic pain is no joke. 
I looked up the cysts and definitely hope that draining it did the trick. My mother and mother-in-law have both had something similar happen (I don't know exactly which type of cyst or the placement) and have told me it's very unpleasant.
*hugs* and hang in there. We're here if you need us! 
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Eagle Whisperer
Posted by ChrisW on 25-03-2015 at 13:52:
msann: *hugs* to you too!
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Eagle Whisperer
Posted by amethyst on 25-03-2015 at 15:27:
Thanks all!
EW, by keeping the jar going while I deal with life helps more than you know.
I tried talking to my cousin last night but I don't think she heard me. She's one of those that can't say no. The step daughters want her to make the reservation, she needs to tell them she has no money to make the reservation. And she doesn't understand her BFF is the most inconsiderate smoker in the world.
__________________
Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by ChrisW on 25-03-2015 at 18:03:
Perhaps you should hint to her family that it would make a wonderful gift to her if they would make the reservation and pay for it themselves.
__________________
Eagle Whisperer
Posted by amethyst on 25-03-2015 at 22:30:
I don't know them that well, and they don't want to be there for her, but for their dad. They've had two years to do this for her.
__________________
Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by ChrisW on 25-03-2015 at 22:37:
__________________
Eagle Whisperer
Posted by Kritter on 25-03-2015 at 23:55:
Amethyst, , my sympathies on the cysts, I've had a coworker who had them and told me how excruciating the treatment is. I'm with you on the knee probs as I'm hobbling around with arthritis in both knees.
Sorry that all has to be compounded by family troubles. What can I say we can't choose our relatives. Ive been through the parents not telling their doctors the truth about their health and having to rat them out to their doctors thing. I know it's hard but it's the right thing to do, doctor's can't help with problems they don't know about. I know all to well how hard it is to,deal with that angry parent who feels you are meddling in their business but it's worth it if you can relieve some of their suffering.
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No matter how much cats fight there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Posted by Becky Rock on 26-03-2015 at 00:01:
Ame, I'm so sorry you have to go through this.
I agree with everything everyone else has said. My screwed up family drove me to two years of therapy to determine there were certain members I just had to cut out of my life to keep me, hubby and son sane.
The idea of backing out gracefully - your knee and cysts have become too much at the moment to go - might be your best move. Stress is having an adverse affect on your immune system, hence the cysts. There are enough other people going to help your cousin. And it's actually her responsibility to tell them they need to pay. One thing I learned in therapy is sometimes we have to be selfish for ourselves. We can't solve everyone else's problems.
Lots of hugs your way.
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I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers so far...
Posted by ChrisW on 26-03-2015 at 01:28:
I got together with an old jr high/high school friend who's been through a lot of stuff and we were both agreeing, too, that therapy is a wonderful thing. 
__________________
Eagle Whisperer
Posted by amethyst on 26-03-2015 at 03:35:
Thanks, all!
I've got her daughter on my side and with her help, it has been decided that the step daughters pay their own way. Haven't heard the final decision about the chimney, but when it is time to make the reservation next week, if she still plans on her coming up, then the chimney can make the reservation, because I can't put myself through that.
On top of all of this, we are helping my middle son with an Eagle Scout project this weekend, and working on his enlistment with the marines. It is all coming at once.
__________________
Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by ElectricWhite on 26-03-2015 at 06:52:
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Hey, that's progress!
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Yeah, that sounds right -- stuff rarely spaces itself out into more manageable bits! Still, I'm glad to hear that some of the things going on in your life aren't sacks of fertilizer hitting you in the head. Congrats to your son for getting so far in the Scouts, and best wishes for what he's about to do with his life!
__________________
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Ray Bradbury
Posted by ChrisW on 26-03-2015 at 16:04:
Yay for good news and progress!!! Congrats to your son, that's quite an achievement on both fronts.
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Eagle Whisperer
Posted by Reboekah on 26-03-2015 at 22:02:
Gadzooks!
Hugs hugs hugs hugs!
Vent my way anytime - I have an ear and a shoulder - and lots of hugs....
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-Boeke
Bird Scramble OE
155 issues - 36.5Years! - and flying high!
Posted by Becky Rock on 26-03-2015 at 22:56:
Eagle Scout! That's great. It sounds like he's getting everything in line for his future.
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I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers so far...
Posted by E.D. Darling on 28-03-2015 at 00:50:
Hugs Amethyst!
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Dang it!
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