I win...

or How I'm going to need a lot of therapy.

Yesterday the oncologist tried to kick my stepmother out of the hospital, saying that she needed to be at a rehab facility at this point. My dad wanted to wait to hear more from the neurologist though. Because the oncologist has only been focusing on the liver and lung. And my stepmother's current problems? Being caused by the brain. Either way around, my dad has now selected a rehab facility that is near their home.

Last night I had a long chat with my friend, Marin, about everything. She had lots of helpful advice since she has had to go through similar when her dad had cancer. And in this conversation, I was declared the winner.

Why was the oncologist so quick to boot my stepmother? Well, apparently things have improved with her liver and lung thanks to the new drug my stepmother has been taking since the beginning of the year when they stopped the chemo. My stepmother had had a lot of reservations about taking this drug due to the many side effects and the fact that the doctors could not guaranteee that it would work. So here I was thinking that she had decided to go for it. Well, according to my dad's older sister (when I talked to her yesterday), my dad kind of made the decision for her. As in he figured that she already takes so many pills that she wouldn't notice one more. But after a couple of weeks, around the time during which some of the side effects started showing up I would guess, he told her and she decided to continue to take the medication. (Have I mentioned how my family sometimes has some severe boundary issues?) At this point in the story, Marin proclaimed, "That's it. You win. You have the craziest family by far." And then I mentioned therapy.

When I shared this all with my mother this morning, her first reaction was, "But you told her that I'm not crazy, right?" I chose to ignore that question. Once she got the hint, my mother added, "Some things never change. Your father has always been that way."

So yeah. Therapy. Although some retail therapy wouldn't hurt either. I guess I should hurry up and finish my tax return. And maybe start saving up some money so that I can do a repeat of 2001 when I had to deal with a lot of sick and dying people besides being laid off from my job. That time I went to London for a week by myself. And I slept in and dined out and shopped. (This was after going to therapy for a couple of months.) And I felt much better. And now that I think about it, it was the last trip that I have taken that was longer than a weekend and did not involve family. I think I'm overdue.