Categories: uncategorized
Date: 21 January 2005 11:59:30
We are in the midst of a family crisis, and it feels a bit like Christmas. It shouldn't, of course. It is a truly terrible thing and on Wednesday night we really thought we were going to lose my father-in-law then and there. He has cancer (and has had for a long while) and the prognosis is now not good.
Now we have got over that first awful evening (a dash to Watford hospital with me driving because my husband has sprained his ankle, and hours in one of those soul-destroying corridors outside intensive care) he is now stable. Trouble is, we don't know for how much longer, and the whole family is staying at my husband's parents house until we really know what's going on.
Some things have returned to normal, and some have not. I still have to go to work (which is a blessing in many ways) but they don't. I had to go back home to South London last night and pick up clothes (got back at 9:30ish) but they have been in Herts back and forth from the hospital. The whole family have reverted back into the roles they had as children (hence the christmas thing, I guess) ... and I am finding it really hard to know what to do.
Practical support is fine. I'm happy to wash, clean, be there and make tea. But what about the things I can't do? For instance, do I go to my friends' birthday party tonight - it isn't like we can be at the hospital, and there will be plenty of people at home? If i'm just being intensely pragmatic I'd say it makes no difference whether we go to this party or not - but is it going to look wrong to my mother-in-law? To outsiders? To God? I just don't know.
This is an intensely sad time, but mostly I just feel shocked. And it's hard not to get tense about all the normal things too - especially when your husband is hobbling around with some ridiculous football injury and all you want is a cup of tea after work. And then you feel mean because you are supposed to be in some kind of "crisis-Florence-Nightingale" mode. I'm not a very nice person. help me god.