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Tokyo Rude
Joined: 28 Mar 2007
Location: I'm on the phone Derrick!
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 Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject: Rudie's Life Crisis |
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Hey SBers! I consider a lot of you good friends and many of you almost good voices of reason. I need a lot of friendly ears right now.
As you may remember last year my mom had anal cancer. I've had a..strained relationship with my mom. Either way, it was really shit news, and I had to go back at one time because the thought was she was going to die that week. She ended up not dying. She's recovering from cancer now. It's been just about a year exactly since I went back for that.
For those not in the know, I'm living and working in Tokyo. My family is in Texas, USA. I believe/did believe I'd be in Tokyo for the long term. I absolutely love the city. I have an apartment, and a couch, and I really really like living here.
I found out yesterday my Dad might have terminal lung cancer. He doesn't have any problems, but he's currently geting more diagnosed. If so, there's like a 1% survival rate. Otherwise 6 to 9 months to live. He's been taking care of my mom, managing his full time job as a head of department at a medical university, and taking care of two dogs and two cats.
If he does have cancer, I already know, I have to give up my life and go back. Doesn't make the decision any easier to face or take. I've built up my life here, and am comfortably settled. To give it up my friends, my girlfriend, my love of Tokyo breaks my heart. I know that not going back to take care of my parents (I'm an only child) would be just about the worst thing I could do in my life, no matter what my mother says.
My mother has told me not to come back. In any since of fidelity I'd have to ignore that an immediately come back.
All I can think about is that line from Lord of the Rings actually. "I never wanted this to happen." "So are all to see such times, but that's not for you to decide, it's only what are you to do with the time given to you."
God I HATE Texas. I seriously HATE being around my mother (for a variety of reasons) (even the serious, tear filled conversation last night was almost unbearable.)
I just have no clue how to handle this. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do, but it fucking sucks a lot. Give up everything for my parents, as they gave up everything for me. |
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Tokyo Rude
Joined: 28 Mar 2007
Location: I'm on the phone Derrick!
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| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:48 pm |
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I got the left lung biopsy report this morning when I saw Interventional Radiology for a POT. No malignant cells were seen. They had a laundry list of possible choices to include sarcoidosis, berylliosis, and hypersensitivity pneumonitis. The path concluded that "Clinical correlation is needed." I left a phone message with my pulmonologist to ask if this path report implies that the left lung problem must be resolved before the surgeons could remove the right lung. He did not return my call so I will try to see him tomorrow when I have a POT with ENT.
After a good deal of internet study I think that MD Anderson is the best place for me to seek care for the mesothelioma. Pulmonology was supposed to have started the paperwork for a civilian referral two weeks ago. I will be looking into that also tomorrow. There appears to be a narrow window of time to treat malignant melanoma. I am still not clear how close I am to that window. |
So yeah. My parents are getting very quiet everytime I mention coming back home. When I first mentioned it in an email, my father responded with, "Your mother was very pleased you would come back home to take care of her."
My relationship with my mother is strained as hell. She was a perfectly good mother, and a terrible human being. Her diet before cancer consisted of a 24 case of beer, packs of cigarettes, and peanut butter straight from the jar. My house is a disaster zone from all the shit she buys. She quite literally buys bags of stuff from the dollar store each week. There are bags all over the house of unworn clothes.
Any attempt to clean up will leave her screaming and crying and saying you hate her. As revenge for cleaning the living room, she once took video games I had on the shelf nicely arrange and threw them in the garbage outside. "To teach you a lesson!"
I can't have a five minute phone conversation with her without wanting to tell her to shut up for being close-minded, ignorant, and opinionated. When Rick Perry said Texas might secede, I asked her what she thought of that and she screaming I'm a lier where I heard from it was fake news, and She couldn't believe I would say those things.
She actually later apologized for that, the first time in my life. She's also hiliariously racist. |
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Tokyo Rude
Joined: 28 Mar 2007
Location: I'm on the phone Derrick!
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:58 pm Post subject: Re: Rudie's Life Crisis |
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| Leau wrote: |
I had the exact opposite situation last year, when I contracted cancer, and had to move back in with my parents. That was really the only option, as my goof ball twenty something roommates can't really take care of you in the method required. So if I was in your situation, I would definitely move back to take care of my folks because they did the exact same thing for me. On the other hand....
| Tokyo Rude wrote: |
| Give up everything for my parents, as they gave up everything for me. |
Don't get into specifics if you don't want to, but what does that mean exactly? What did they give up for you? Is it just working to pay for school? Again, don't feel the need to talk about any of this to us, but it sounds like you feel your mom was a lousy parent growing up. They can't be both can they? Great parents who gave up everything, but also really bad ones?
I love my folks, but I have a lot of friends who have shitty parents. Various affairs, and addictions, and divorce, and just putting their own shit before their kids. And as I've grown older, I've realized; it's okay to write off your parents as losers at a certain point. I've had friends who finally had to cut ties, and they're much happier not always being pulled into shitstorms. It's a tough thing to do, and unthinkable when you're younger.
I guess that sounds really cold (especially in this context) but I've just seen people become so much happier when they finally get away from their retarded legacy. Having a child that you aren't prepared to raise isn't a unique event; It doesn't necessarily deserve to be rewarded. |
That was mostly me just being overtly dramatic.
I have a pretty good relationship with my father until realizing I was smarter than him. Last time I was at home, everytime I asked him a question that he didn't know the answer to he replied with "I don't know" and refuted any attempts to take a guess answer. Basically shutting down any possible conversation. So I stuck to just talking about my life in Japan...
My situation with my mother is well. She's fucking crazy.
My dad has a "meeting" with a surgeon in Houston. I don't know what that actually implies. He's telling me to hold off on making any decisions. If I do go back I imagine it might be around August or September. Wait until my contract ends. |
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