A day does make a bit of difference

It's true. I'm feeling better today. Still overwhelmed, but coping a little better.

I think the thing that threw me overboard yesterday was an email I received from one of my aunts. Last fall she was diagnosed with cancer, pancreatic - one of the worst kinds, and she had a follow-up cat scan done Wednesday. By the time she finally got the correct diagnosis (No thanks to the assholes at the Mayo Clinic) it was pretty much too late to do anything preventative. She's supposed to have test results Friday to know if the 30 some odd radiation treatments she did the first of the year have done anything to manage the growth of the tumor. She was also doing low dose chemo one time a week and has now started the full dose chemo pill treatment.

I've said before, I have a rather large family. In "normal" families, when someone is diagnosed with a terminal condition, things like this draw you closer together. In my family, it has driven us all further apart. All the cat fights between the sisters (my mom and aunts) have gotten way out of control and has put all of us kids in uncomfortable situations. If this is the way they react to a sister that's ill, what the hell are they going to do when grandma gets bad?!? I mean, lets be realistic, my grandma is 78 years old - this is going to happen sooner rather than later.

I have been openly honest with all of my aunts, my grandmother, my mother and all my cousins about my opinion of how they are dealing with this. I've told everyone - it's time this family faces the demons, starts acting like adults and leaves the bitchy-ness behind. We're all human, whether we want to admit/show it we all have feelings, and my guess is that we're all feeling the same way - that this is bad shit. We are not doing anything to help Jill with her diagnosis by turning on each other. She's at a time when she needs her family, her entire family, behind her for support. Certain people (Heidi) need to concentrate on what's going on right now instead of making sure they get what they want out of their dying sisters house. That's right people - she's d y i n g. People do not recover from stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

So, once again, since I am the "responsible" one in this whole fricking messed up family, I get to try to keep everybody in check. Believe me, I can bitch with the best of them, and I can hold things together when I need to, but I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to be the one holding this family together. We all need to deal with this now, before it's too late, so we can know that things were "right" with Jill when her time ends. And then, as a family, we'll need to try to pick up the pieces and move on. That's all you can do.