Re: Does Medical Drama change anything?

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the good words -- the encouragement is appreciated.

And you're right: the answers to those questions you posed would

be: No, they wouldn't suddenly be wonderful parents if one of them

had cancer. In fact, they would use it to squeeze more out of me,

via sympathy. They're out for whatever they can get.

It's like that tendency to remember a dead person as wonderful, now

that they're dead, when everybody in the room knows he was a jerk

when he was alive. His death didn't change anything --

Fada does this dance with nada pretty well, and as is apparent from

his long lack of contact with me (while calling my brother every

day) that I'm in their scope as the target.

I'll keep it low key and detached, expressing sympathy when the

facts warrant, maybe helping here and there, but I'm not going to be

a 24 hour free nurse like I've seen them do.

Thanks again

Kyla

> >

> > Question: When you've gone NC/RC, has anyone encountered a

phone

> > call with bad medical news about nada/fada that perhaps the

caller

> > was hoping would soften us, or suddenly change our feelings

toward

> > the BPD?

> >

> > Background:

> >

> > Got a call from dishrag that my nada's mammogram might have had

a

> > spot and they want her to come back in. He said " I got the

results

> > of your mom's mammogram and it's not good. "

> >

> > He said he was worried sick (she's out of town taking care of

her

> > elderly mother) and now that I think about it, I'm not sure what

he

> > wanted me to do. I guess he thought it was bad news that should

be

> > told.

> >

> > Knowing that he has overdone bad news before, I tried to get the

> > facts before I reacted.

> >

> > I tried to calm him by telling him that many, many times, these

> > things are calcium deposits and are harmless; and that she's

been

> > very regular with her mammograms and checkups, so chances are,

even

> > if it's the " Big C " , it's early. And we don't even know that

yet.

> >

> > He countered with " Well, you know you have a family history of

> > breast cancer " and I said " Yes, but grandma was 85 when she got

it,

> > and that's at the age when everyone in the general population is

> > more susceptible to cancers. We don't have the kind of family

> > history -- young woman relatives getting breast cancer -- that

is

> > cause for alarm.

> >

> > I also told him that I had had a callback on my mammogram, too.

I

> > had not shared this with him before, so if he was trying to get

me

> > to call my nada and calm her, that pretty much squelched it.

Since

> > he never bothers to call me and chastises me for staying away

from

> > nada, I wasn't about to pour my worries on him or her.

> >

> > Not to sound callous -- but what experience has everyone had,

and

> > how have you handled it? I can just see my mother in this

> situation

> > and a bad diagnosis would be bad enough -- but a bad diagnosis

on a

> > BPD drama queen/pity junkie would be a tough ride for me.

> >

> > -K

> >

>