Conflicting reports on mom's prognosis

I go out to get the kids some breakfast and Sonic ice for Roy’s knee but swing by my Aunt Carolyn’s first.  I want to visit with her about the discrepancies in her account of mom’s prognosis and the account I was told by the doctor because should there be further discussion with Brenda or Erica, I want to have my information together.  She’s not home so I swing by Aunt Jeanette’s. 

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Aunt Jeanette had called me the day after I found out about mom’s prognosis.  I was at work but outside leaving for the day.  Roy was waiting in the car.  Aunt Jeanette was obviously devastated.  She felt bad for us (daughters) having lost a dad and now going through this with mom.  She wanted me to know that she loved me and that she would always be available for me.  It makes me cry just typing this.  Her little sister is dying and she’s grieving on so many different levels – as we all are.  I cry and tell her I love her too. 

*

Uncle Jim answers the door and we all sit in the living room to talk.  Since Aunt Carolyn is no longer staying with mom at the hospital, I suppose I feel someone should pass along the doctor’s reports.  When I’d left the hospital Saturday, I wasn’t sure if Brenda and Erica would have an opportunity to talk to a doctor or not.  Since then, Brenda had called me but I’d missed the call.  She left a voice message explaining, with a bit of the attitude I’d expected, that they’d talked with a doctor and received a much different report than that of the one mom gave. 

I talked with my aunt and uncle about what the doctor had told me.  It seems every time a doctor speaks, we get very few answers.  We talked a little bit about the reaction I expected from Brenda and possibly Erica.  We talked a little bit about Erica’s continued animosity towards me.  We talked about several of their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.  We talked until I began getting calls and texts from Candice and Roy and I knew I needed to leave to get their lunch.

It wasn’t long after I’d left that I received a call from Aunt Jeanette informing me that Erica had called her with a much different report than mine.  Erica said that the doctor that talked to me had misinformed me.  (This struck me weird because Erica didn’t know details about what the doctor had said to me, unless she was speaking about from what Aunt Jeanette had told her that I’d said.)  Erica told Aunt Jeanette that a team of doctors had come in and told her that there was no time line, the balls were not cancerous, and they had found a little bit of cancer when doing the surgery on the fistula but had removed it so therefore mom was cancer-free.  Aunt Jeanette said Erica had tried to call me several times but I had hung up on her. (Wow! I’m floored by this because it’s completely untrue.  She had not tried to call me – there was nothing on the caller I.D.  And do not try to say that maybe she called the wrong number because I’m in her cellphone address book and that would be, frankly, bullshit.  I just have an issue with people who have to tell bold-face lies to validate themselves. But whatever… )

Aunt Jeanette was confused now and this was exactly what I was trying to avoid.  I couldn’t talk to Erica because she wasn’t talking to me but now we are not on the same page because of it and just confusing everyone.  Aunt Jeanette suggest that I make copies of the papers that the doctor provided to me and that we could sit down with her daughter, Ellen, who is a R.N. to help us understand it.

I decide to sit back and stay silent.  I don’t need to discuss this right now.  The truth will work itself out.

Rationally thinking, Erica and I are probably both right.  I mean, if the doctors are in there doing surgery and see a little bit of cancer, they are going to cut it out.  They are not going to just leave it in her so they can do yet another surgery later to remove it.  So, yeah, they took it out.  But she is likely not cancer-free.  This is more than likely a recurrence.