(This gets long...feel free to skip it if you'd rather not read about family drama...)
On the 15th my in-laws were in a motorcycle accident a few hours from town. I found out through the grapevine. When I called my sister-in-law to find out what was going on, she was rude to me. Brian was (understandably) worried and upset...and angry that his sister hadn't called me right away. Both my father- and mother-in-law have been in and out of surgery for the last week. My father-in-law almost lost his foot, broke two bones in his arm, and broke his clavicle and his scapula. He was discharged today, but will need more surgery on his ankle/foot. My mother-in-law had a partially collapsed lung, lacerated liver, and a broken clavicle and scapula. While putting her back together they discovered she had kidney cancer. They refused to tell me what was going on until after they told Brian. They gave me cryptic clues for over 5 hours including "it's not life-threatening." My sister-in-law clued me in after Brian finally called them. When I asked if it had spread or was only in the kidney, she got flustered and put the phone down so she could talk to her dad. I could still hear everything she was saying. It was obvious she either didn't know if it had spread or didn't want to tell me what she did know. She finally came back and told me it was only in the kidney and hadn't spread. Brian had a feeling that they were keeping something from him, so I texted my SIL to ask. She answered "No we have told him everything and he's not out of the loop I promise." (I actually just looked that up on my phone so I would get it just right.) We trusted her when she said this and focused on what was happening to Brian's parents. My FIL had two surgeries on his ankle/foot, one on his arm/wrist and one on his clavicle/scapula. My MIL was slated to have her kidney removed on Wednesday of this past week. I booked a hotel and made plans to go down there Tues-Fri.
Fast forward to Wednesday. I thought my SIL and I were sorta bonding. (We hadn't spoken or seen each other since I moved home almost 6 months ago despite living in the same town.) My MIL made it through surgery and everything looked good on the cancer front. We were all (me, my SIL & BIL, my FIL's cousin and aunt) in my FIL's room waiting for my MIL to return to her room after recovery when my FIL calls me over to his bed and tells me that they basically lied to Brian and me. They have known since Saturday (when the cancer was discovered) that the cancer was also in one of her lungs. It is a small amount of cancer and would likely be easily treated, but still...the cancer was not just in her kidney like we had been told.
I was so shocked that everything sorta slowed down. I looked at my FIL and told him "Brian't going to kill you." He said, "That's fine." He really didn't get it. I looked around and realized that my BIL (SIL's husband) had known this all along. He married into this family just like I did...why did he get to know everything, but Brian and I were left in the dark? I told my FIL that Brian had a feeling something was wrong and I turned to my SIL and told her that she promised that we knew everything. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do because she broke down. She whined about me blaming her (which I was) and then stormed out of the room. My FIL's cousin ran after her. My FIL seemed to think that I was upset because they hadn't told me (which I sorta was), but I was really upset because they lied to their son. He is deployed, working his butt off, worried sick and they thought it was a good idea to lie to him?! I assured my FIL that I was not upset for me. I told him that I had to be Brian's advocate because he is not in the country. He still didn't seem to understand.
I returned to my corner of the room where I frantically tried to get my computer to connect to the hospital internet so I could talk to Brian on Skype. My FIL's cousin returned to the room after consoling my SIL and I asked if she was ok. I got the icy response of "She's just reeealllly tired and reeaaallyy stressed." Um, no shit. But she needs to take responsibility for what she did. I never could get the internet to work, so I had to settle for telling Brian that his father and sister lied to him using the Skype app on my iPhone. It was really annoying, but got the job done.
He was pissed (surprise surprise). He called his sister's phone and made her cry (because he said "What the f*ck" when she answered) and then reamed his dad for a good 10-15 minutes. I sat there minding my own business listening to his dad's side of the conversation. I don't think his dad ever really understood that Brian was mad that they had kept this extra cancer information from him and that Crystal had lied about there being something he didn't know. Brian was annoyed with the way they had treated me and how they refused to tell me anything about the accident or the cancer, but the main issue was how they chose to keep this tid bit from him. His dad just didn't get it. Brian finally got off the phone with him and called me. He sounded so broken hearted. Half his family had lied to him and he didn't know who to trust anymore. All he wanted was reliable information about his beloved mother who had cancer. To him, if they were lying about this, what else could they be lying about? They kept swearing that we knew everything now, but they'd basically said that before and we'd believed them only to find out later that they were full of crap.
After I talked to Brian, I didn't stick around too much longer. I had to get away from them. I think we all calmed down and the next couple days passed without incident. No one ever spoke of the showdown that happened on Wednesday. Brian's mom still doesn't know any of it happened. Things are sorta icy between me and my SIL again. I'm relying mainly on text communication with my MIL (who is doing much better every day). I text or call my SIL when absolutely necessary. My FIL was discharged today and they expect my MIL to be discharged in a few days. They might be home within the week.
Brian and I are in the homestretch to R&R. The deployment was just getting to the point that we were getting on each other's nerves. This accident has brought us back together. We're in sync again. We're more a team now than ever before. I have his father and sister to thank for that.
This month has been crazy. We passed Brian's (and my) 4 year Army anniversary. We're right around the halfway point for this deployment. I can finally count the days (instead of weeks or months) until I see him again. I'm thisclose to finishing this semester of grad school. I have so many things to look forward to in the next few months.
I'm sorry the blog has been slacking. I don't know what it is...maybe my blogging days are numbered. Maybe it's run its course. Or maybe my life is either too interesting or not interesting enough to blog about.
Either way, Happy Easter, Y'all! May you have a wonderfully relaxing Easter Sunday with those you love most.
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