Feel like a real cow bringing this up.
My husband's 85 year old father is very ill in hospital at the moment. He may not make it. It is a very sad and hard time for us all, especially for my husband who has had to deal with my cancer last year and the ongoing uncertainty of our lives post-treatment.
My husband's sister and her husband, three grown-up kids and their partners came over from interstate to be with my father-in-law during this time. We are all banding together to give him and my mother-in-law (also 85 years old) as much support as possible and leaving it in the hands of the excellent medical staff to get him through this. Our neighbour of 14 years has popped over to give us her support and encouragement and left us a terrific voicemail message.
The thing that really hurts, and has hurt since I got diagnosed, is that these people were not "there" for me when I was diagnosed last year, had 8 chemos, neutropenia, a mastectomy and, basically, thought I was going to die. Same with relatives on my side of the family. Other friends that I've had for 15 and 20 years just disappeared off the face of the planet and didn't turn up again until about now when I'm 18 months post diagnosis.
Just thinking about this used to make me cry buckets and wonder whether I was such a bad friend/relative for them to abandon me like that.
Really, would it have killed them to put a card in the post! Isn't stuff like that what you do when someone's poorly and needs support?
This has been something I've wanted to post about for a while but it makes me sound like such a whiny cow, especially now that these feelings have resurfaced during my father-in-law's illness.
Does anyone have any words of wisdom?
Helen.
