jo_anne_storm | Entries tagged with mil

It's been awhile since I updated... So you need background info.

MiL had been having increasing pain since around April. She had chronic pancreatitis, so pain was a constant, but it was becoming worse. And then she was jaundiced.

A couple surgeries, some hoops, etc... There was a tumor at the head of her pancreas. Biopsy showed cancer and the tumor was large enough to be considered Stage 4.

PET Scan, however, showed nothing. And MiL initially took that test to be the end all and be all of tests. She was celebrating. Until she had her next appointment and wondered why they were sending her to radiation oncology.

Because some cancers just do not show up on PET Scans. Especially pancreatic cancer. They were not sure if it was pancreatic or bile duct cancer. Neither is good.

She decided to do chemo. She was not a surgery candidate. But with the gentler form of chemo, she would extend her life and not be miserable. She could have a good Christmas for SiL's twins.

She had her second round Wednesday, and they reduced one of the two infusions that time because her blood count was low. Thurday she was fine.

Friday, DH and I were out of the house for most of the day. We really didn't see her at all. Which is not unusual. She said that she had been awake most of the night from the steroids. (They made her manic.)

We were again out a good deal of Saturday. She was in bed all day. When I checked on her, she said that she was just wiped and there was no reason to call Oncology. I got her to eat a little bit and she said she felt better after that.

Sunday, DH convinced her to call Oncology. She decided that it could wait until Monday. Apparently, nothing was staying in her system, so she was not eating.

Monday, we discovered a plumbing leak on one of the main lines coming into the house. One of 3. (My house is fucking weird.) I did it partway, got Eldest to pick up some plumbing supplies before he left work (he's part-time at Ace Hardware right now.) Leave him and #3 to it while I take MiL to Oncology. Only, what we thought was the issue was not, which meant we would have to dig more out today and figure out the actual issue.

Tests showed that white cells and platelets were nonexistent. Which is what chemo does. She got an infusion to help with that, I picked up some bland diet foods, a new RX, and brought her home.

This morning, she had gotten up and drank some coffee and looked at her mail. Yay, the infusion made her feel better. I made myself breakfast and went to get started on the plumbing issue. #3 went to use the bathroom one last time before we shut off the water...

And came running to get me because MiL was on the floor of the hallway...

I tell him to get DH, who was working from home today, and run to check on her. It's too late. She was already cold. (Yeah, this is not... I'm practical enough to know the truth of this. Even though I was sobbing while on the phone to 911 and telling them that there is no point to trying CPR.)

We do not know exactly what happened. She obviously fell at some point. There was bruising on her forehead, and her side table was turned over in her room. She also managed to pull the ironing board away from the opposite doorway and collapsed in a way that basically closed her bedroom door. Usually, DH would hear something like that from his basement office, but if he was on a call and had his earbuds in...

I assume whatever happened happened pretty quickly. DH heard her moving around at about 7. We found her at about 9.

Part of me feels guilty for not knowing she had fallen. On the other hand, in the past few months, it was not unusual for her to not come out of her part of the house for hours at a time. The coffee and mail meant that she was doing better.

We knew death was going to happen. Neither cancer possibility had a good survival rate. We were not expecting it so soon or suddenly. There's still some shock going on right now.

And, look... I used to adore my MiL. Before she started saying things like gay men are always pedophiles because they love beautiful things and pre-pubescent children are beautiful. But are also great people to send your young son to the circus with... Or that the KKK was invented to walk little old ladies across the street. Or consistently called trans people "he-she-it".

My relationship with her was complicated. But I still did not want her to die.

And, also: I can make my house MINE now! I can take down the artwork that I hate and get rid of the tons and tons of religious books.

Not yet. It will be a slow process. DH and SiL will need to look at several things to see if either of them want it and if there might be any value in it. But both pretty much agree that even if the items were high value when they were bought, lack of proper care has made them worthless.

Current Mood: blank

I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday. The series of questions they always ask is designed to find out if you are depressed. "Do you have any interest in things you normally like doing?" That sort of thing.

And... I'm not depressed, I think. OK, to explain, I think about this every single time. Am I actually depressed and just don't realize it? And right now I am, understandably, going through a blue period. But I think I am ok.

December was hard. Just... Hard. Mom died on Dec 29th. My friend's toddler's funeral was also the 29th. And #3 was projectile vomiting. WHich meant I could not go to the funeral. Which is probably better overall.

But... I am understandably blue. Most of the time it is fine. Sometimes, it is not. I probably need another crying jag.

So. Mom fell over Thanksgiving. Around the middle of December she was taken to the hospital. Sometime around the 22-23rd, she had a massive stroke. I got a call early morning the 24th to come down to say goodbye and make decisions. Not that Sis and I had not already made decisions. But...

Talk to the doctor on the 24th. Mom was not going to get better. She woke up enough to say hi to me. I do not think that was in my mind. But she was... Even when she was "awake", she was not there. So... DNR, with a move to hospice planned.

Hospice did not exactly go as planned. I think she finally got to hospice on the 28th. The one the doctor wanted to send her to said no because she was not in pain or respiratory distress. Which, weird. I don't know their particular metric. I had never considered that a hospice would be that specific. Some time on the 27th, she started showing signs of pain (grimacing) and trouble breathing. Yay morphine and yay hospice. And then she died early on the 29th.

So... Yeah. End of the year sucked ass and that takes time to recover from.

Doing shit like having to pour my MiL into bed on the night of the 25th did not help my attitude at all. I get that retiring is a major life change. In her drunken state she confessed that she had used the church to replace her husband and therefore retiring was akin to killing him herself. Which... OK...

It's not any more off the wall than anything else she has ever said.

About a week or so ago, she said something at dinner to SiL about how what our current priest (Fr C) had done to her, how he treated her, would have gotten him shot by her male relatives 50 years ago. *blinks* And that her old priest (M G) told her to send the email that Fr C had sent her to the person who decides where priests are stationed for the dioceses and that Fr C would never be a pastor of a parish again. *blinks*

OK, this is a woman who basically dismisses pedo priests as being an issue because obviously they are all gay and gay men love beautiful things, like "unripe" little boys. And was sad that a former priest suddenly became a sexual predator after suffering from encephalitis. (So she says was the issue.) What the HELL could Fr. C have said that was so evil?

And... I could dismiss my next actions as worry about the state of our current priest and his actions. But... Well, I was pretty sure she was being ridiculous and making a mountain out of an ant hill. And I'm a nosy bitch.

So, remember back in August the post about our dithering Organist telling my MiL that she does not control the church and to quit treating people like kindergarteners?

At about the same time, Fr C sent her the email in question. It was a long, very polite email. It started with an offer of a stipend to make up her gas cost and wear and tear on her car. Then continued on to set boundaries for her. Fr C cited specific grievances he and other people had. Like ordering the church secretary around and expecting her to hop to, drop whatever she was doing, and deal with whatever MiL asked her to. Or the volunteer who came in to fix a specific maintenance issue but kept getting a list of other things that needed to happen RIGHT NOW and therefore was reluctant to come back if MiL was around because he could not get his work done. Or from Fr C himself, who coordinated with volunteers of specific organizations within the church to get something done or planned, only to follow up and find that MiL had told them to do something completely different, which stepped on the toes of a different volunteer organization, which he had been trying to avoid doing. Or her constant interruption of conversations between himself and parishioners after Mass, oftentimes abruptly inserting herself and her opinions about whatever the topic of conversation was.

There were other examples, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. It boiled down to "these people don't work for you and you are not in charge".

Her response was literally "Keep your prostitution money. I am devastated."

Mind you, this email was filled just as much with praise over what areas Fr C wanted her to stick to. Flowers, sacristy work, etc.

So, yeah. I'm a nosy bitch.

Three people are taking over for her and she is "silently" crowing that they will not do as good of a job, that Fr C will have to start paying $400/week for flowers (or $200/week, depending on who she is talking to), that the church will not run half as smoothly as it did before.

When, really, people who had to deal with her on the regular are probably very happy that she can no longer be a petty dictator.

Of course... Now she is going to spend a lot more time around the house. She's already planning on more elaborate meals and how to rearrange all the plates and silverware to match our current lifestyle better. Which she seems to think means using the sterling silver instead of the silver plate utensils. Which... I get it. Life is short, use the good china. (Only don't, because I don't want to hand wash that shit.) I just... Why? If she wants to use something that looks in better repair than the current silver plated stuff, I have a whole set that has barely been used. Let's just use that.

Hopefully it will warm up soon and she will spend time in the garden.

*points at icon* I'm having issues doing that right now...

So, updatey thing. MiL had the lung cancer surgery back in May. Afterwards the cancer board at the hospital decided that it was aggressive enough that she should have chemotherapy. That has been fun. Three weeks cycles of poisoning and recovery. But now that is finished. Right now they are doing supportive. recovery care, getting her blood counts and kidney function back up. It is what it is.

She starts a clinical trial for a drug next week. Something that has apparently been on the market forever and that they are investigating as a post cancer drug. *shrug* She felt a moral obligation to do it, and it pretty much tipped her scale towards doing the chemo since it was a requirement to take part in the study.

PET scans... 2 weeks ago? 3? 4? Recently. She had just started to recover some of her activities, like doing altar flowers for the church. Which, of course, means that something went wrong.

She picked up a tub of flowers and hurt her back. We all thought she pulled a muscle, until she went to her primary clinic due to continued pain. Nope. Compression fracture of a vertebrae. So... Yeah, that's fun.

No previous hint of osteoporosis. The PET scan was recently enough that it should not be cancer. Chemo can cause osteoporosis, so that is probably what is happening.

But, she is in pain, and anxious. I understand this. I do.

I do not understand her be bitchy about EVERYTHING. The boys put a stack of papers on the table that is there for people to lay things on to sort though. She yelled about that. The Munchkin had library books on the kitchen peninsula. She hitched about that.

Like, seriously. I get it. But stop taking it out on everyone.

My tongue should be bloody from how many times I bite it now.

Crossposts: https://jo-anne-storm.livejournal.com/661411.html

I don't hate the Catholic faith, mind you. I think doctrine is wrong on a lot of things and needs to come into the 21st Century. And the priests need to STOP FUCKING COVERING UP AND CONDONING ABUSE OF ALL TYPES!!!

That's not want this rant is actually about. Though I have another rant in me about how abusive marriages are still considered good and faithful marriages, plus the whole sexual abuse of altar servers, seminarians, etc. And the fact that Pope Francis has reinstated bishops and priests who covered it up and were directly involved. But... That's a whole other rant.

My particular church, I do not like. The priest is a racist asshole and I know way too much about him and the politics of the church. That being said, I also can't change my parish because of family politics. And my priest is close to retirement, and I like the priest that has been brought in to replace him. Possibly I like him simply because I don't know him as well... But he's practical and knows how to cook, does serious woodworking, and was knee deep in the flooded basement with my boys as they tried to solve the water issue. Out senior priest stayed warm and dry and dithered about things getting wet.

I'm rambling.

So, I knew this was coming. And hopefully I shut it down as a... criticism at the dinner table. We have a lesbian couple who have started coming to Mass. I haven't talked to them, but I don't talk to anyone after Mass, so it would be weird for me to pop up and welcome them. They aren't being in your face with their relationship. The most I have seen is them holding hands as they come in. They usually stop before they even enter the sanctuary. No idea if they join the communion line, but the state of their souls, like the state of their relationship, is not my business.

Several people have went to Father and asked him to put a stop to it.

Before my MiL could continue, I cut in and stated that doing so would be WRONG. (My MiL goes back and forth on how supportive she is of gay and lesbian people. She will talk about her good gay friends who all died of AIDS,but then will comment that SiL's gay friend needs to find a good girl and straighten out. So, I'm never quite sure which way she is going to fall.) I couched it in terms of "if church is for people seeking redemption, then kicking people out who are seeking redemption is the opposite of what you should do." Which is true and does not get into my personal feelings that the Catholic Church is wrong about gay marriage.

Apparently Father has decided that as long as they are not shoving their relationship in anyone's face, the couple can stay. *sigh* That's probably the best I can hope for.

Crossposts: https://jo-anne-storm.livejournal.com/659393.html

No, seriously. She swears she knows more than any doctor. And comes up with these hairbrained ideas.

So, I'm still having hives. The elimination diet is working! But there are hiccups. Like the munchkin drinking my water after eating popcorn. Or the salad at a theme park that should have been perfectly safe. Only it wasn't. Most of it is my fault because I have to adjust my way of thinking. "Oh, #3 left grapes behind. I'll eat those." Only, if he was also eating a corndog, then those grapes are now contaminated with sausage, corn, and eggs, none of which we have eliminated yet.

We have eliminated milk and tomatoes as the cause. Corn starch also seems fine, though corn and corn syrup do not. And right now I am an itchy mess due to eating out. Yes, yes, I know...

Anyway, the elimination diet is obviously having an effect. I'm not having huge outbreaks. So, yay.

Only... My MiL keeps looking for alternative reasons for why I could be having hives. I have thyroid issues. I mentioned to her that thyroid issues can cause hives (after proof positive that it is something I eat because I had just gone 3 days without any). And obviously I should march down to my family doc and have him do a complete work up!

The latest one was because DH and Eldest also had a spot of hives. Both on their hands and DH on his forearm as well. We think they got into some poison ivy. The area of hives did not change in any way. Just stuck around for a bit. DH finally remembered to take some benadryl and his are now gone. He told me this in front of MiL, who had not known about his or Eldest's hives. Suddenly we needed to explore the possibility that it was a parasite.

We both looked at her like she was crazy. Both times she tried to push the issue.

She's looking for zebras when she can SEE the horses.

But my legitimate medical issue is inconvenient for her, so she tries to find another explanation. And she tries to rush adding things back in. Like the corn starch/syrup/solids. She's the one who told me that they are all different and had me ask the NP if they needed to be excluded as well. And yet, we missed something with starch, therefore we should be good to add all 3 back in. Literally, we were talking about it at dinner one night and she completely ignored the fact that I had JUST said I wanted to wait a few days to be sure before adding corn back in, even though we were using corn starch already. I had to do that thing where you stop, look a person dead in the eye, and speak slowly and clearly so that there is no mistake.

She's gonna get her head bitten off.

On a good note, no junk food equals healthier eating and I have lost around 15#. So, yay.