Damn, bad things really do come in threes. In my office, I have 3 coworkers who have sick moms. One mom is getting her hip replaced after the pin she got pin in last year started causing her pain. Another mom has cancer and is in the hospital. She hasn’t really done much for treatment but she’s been doing ok. And the third mom was just told yesterday that her cancer is terminal and there’s nothing more for them to really do. It just sucks all around.
That just makes me thankful that my family is in relatively good health. For now anyway.
This whole mom with cancer thing is nuts. That makes 3 coworkers that have moms with cancer and 1 coworker whose husband is in remission. Yeah. What are the odds for that?
In other family news, my aunt may be finally moving out into a group home arrangement. She’ll have her own apartment and all that but will do meals in a communal setting. My aunt is 63 and has lived with either my grandmother or my mom all her life. This will be a change. She’ll fight it for a bit but she’ll be ok. She can handle most stuff on her own, with lots of direction. She’s like a 4-5 year old that will never grow up.
I hate to blame my grandparents for her attitude, but it’s all in the way she was raised. Grandma raised her with the idea that there were lots of things that she couldn’t and shouldn’t do. She did have her small tasks around the house but she wasn’t self-sufficient at all. It was a huge struggle when she moved in as she felt that she couldn’t and shouldn’t do anything, but my parents felt otherwise. Plus she could do it, she just didn’t want to.
Understandably, this has cause a whole lot of friction in my family, especially when she first moved in after grandma died. Anthony had just left for college and my parents had just gotten the whole empty nest thing. And then came the perma-child who worships the ground my mom walks on but doesn’t give a damn about anyone else really. It was an upheaval. They had to fight to get any sort of help to deal with this. It was over a year before they could get her put into a day program so she wouldn’t be home alone and watching tv all day while my parents worked. Another year later, they managed to get a helper in to teach her skills that they couldn’t. Plus there was counseling for everyone to deal with it. Needless to say, it put a strain on my parents marriage. But they managed to weather through it and deal with everything.
Hopefully this will go through this time. She was supposed to be in this summer but the people handling her case screwed up big time. She was initially rejected because the dumbasses didn’t do their job. They didn’t read her doctor’s notes, her files, or anything really. They hadn’t even met her and talked to her, and they just rejected her, which is not the proper process. Mom was stunned to find out about the rejection, and when she had a meeting about the appeal, she was told that they messed up and they messed up bad. In fact, the people in charge told her that she had a lawsuit if she wanted to sue. (When people are telling you that you should sue them because you have a really good case, there’s a problem, doncha think?) So much fun.
So Aunt is on a waiting list right now, which is strange as there are open spots so there really isn’t a waiting list so we’re not sure what’s up. But hopefully she’ll be in soon. If she’s not, I’m not sure what will happen.
3 comments:
As horrible as this may sound-cases like this are probably why I'd abort a foetus I knew had a developmental disability.
Not because I have a problem raising that child-and I really admire people who stand up to the challenge. But after you're gone, that kid is SOL. Seriously-it's a major imposition on relatives, the cost of proper care can be horrendously prohibitive unless you can get stuff through Medicaid, they are at severe risks for abuse. Perhaps the most painful cases I've read are about sterilising your children against their wishes (or in some cases they don't even understand) because of sexual activity in group home and care settings. I don't want to have to make those choices-I'm too weak.
I think it's really admirable you guys have stood by your aunt, Yank. I know it can't have been easy.
Oh, Aline is way past child-bearing age in the first place. She would have been a normal child if the doctor hadn't been drunk at her birth. She didn't get enough oxygen and thus brain damage. Yeah. Grandma should have sued but she didn't. She also made the choice to not institutionalize her, which was a big deal in the day.
I still think it is a big deal to raise a child that is developmentally disabled. There are plenty of people who give their children up for adoption if they can't bear the thought of abortion.
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