Tough family decisions

[olliejen]

Hello EDF,

I'm loathe to discuss much personal matters on a forum such as this, but there are a pretty wide swath of personal experiences and expertise here and maybe some good advice to be had. So, here goes...

I've had a pretty rocky 2007 so far. I live on the West coast and my parents lived in the Washington DC area. In February, my mom passed away rather suddenly. She had a form of brain cancer called Glioblastoma Multiforme, which is almost 100% very quick and very lethal. My dad has had stage 3 and now stage 4 lung cancer (adenocarinoma) for the last couple of years.

Before, my mom would drive him back and forth to his treatments at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. Now, my dad's treatments will be resuming in the next week or so and before long he will be too weak to do much of anything.

My sister still lives near my dad, but she recently had a baby (her 2nd) and she's quite busy herself. My dad has friends who have said they will help care for him, but I can't help but feel like this is really something family should do.

My wife is also 20 weeks pregnant, also with our 2nd child (my 1st is just under 2) She's also starting a new job next month (she was laid off from her last one) and, at my job, my division was recently re-org'ed so there's still a lot of ambiguity around what our new roles will be.

In short, it doesn't seem like a great set of circumstances for taking FMLA or vacation leave in order to go care for my dad, who will need help soon. We have enough savings to go the full-term of FMLA without my salary. But, I can't risk more time than that since any longer and I can't really *know* that I'll have my job as I need the health insurance with my wife being pregnant and all. Also, her new job is also a contract-to-hire position so we don't have assurances that will be rock-solid.

My dad's new treatment regimen is such that its not something he could realistically do over here and live with us.

So, in short, here are variables as I see them:
1. My dad and his prognosis.
2. My own family's needs here, attention, help, financial, etc.
3. My somewhat ambiguous job situation.
4. The aspect of, how will I feel if my dad really is in his last hours and I'm not there...

Any ideas, EDF? My aunt suggested looking into some sort of live-in nurse/helper or something to that end. I could use up some vacation and go help out during the harder chemo weeks, but that's not good as a longer-term solution. Maybe I should go back and forth periodically and use up vacation and chunks of unpaid leave as needed?

[Evan]

Assisted living seems like the only resaonable answer here. If you can offered live in or house visit care I'm sure that would be better. I've never had to deal with anything like that so I have no idea what the options or costs involved are, but this situation seems like exactly what it is inteded for.

[El Diablo]

ollie,

Sucks, sound v rough, sorry to hear it.

"Maybe I should go back and forth periodically and use up vacation and chunks of unpaid leave as needed?"

I think that given your conflicting responsibilities to your dad, wife, and children, that's the only thing that really makes sense given your commitment and desire for involvement, which sounds pretty much how I would feel in this situation.

I think the fact that you have a sister in the area makes it OK for you to not be there all the time, and somethign like what I quoted plus some sort of nurse/help lets you do right by your dad while still taking appropriate care of your family. Obviously a big burden, financially, time-wise, and stress-wise, but given your situation and attitude, I can't see a better solution.

Perhaps slightly relevant to the situation, what do you do for a living?

[olliejen]

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps slightly relevant to the situation, what do you do for a living?

[/ QUOTE ]

I work in IT Operations. In my previous incarnation, I was a database administrator working in a team. So, between my team's coverage in my stead and me working part of the time remotely, the systems I supported wouldn't see much, if any, service drop-off.

In broad strokes, for my new job responsibilities I'm part of a team trying to set up the logical and physical framework for my company's IT/internal (versus commercial) software building, testing and deployment. It's exciting but I'm a complete neophyte to the processes/tools/jargon of s/w development lifecycles and methodologies.

Also, as I previously alluded to, job responsibilities & commitments within my new team are rather nebulous at the moment. No one really has a great idea of where their job starts and ends. As such, I've spent most of the last few weeks just learning about SDLC's in general...

asleep yet? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[renodoc]

ugh.

tl;dr-- although i got the gist of a really crappy situation. very sorry for you. Can you accomodate your dad in your living situation?

you should buy yourself a [censored] of term life asap. its cheap now, and your family cancer history is a drag.

[IronFly]

wow dude, tough spot to be in. My sympathies.

It sounds like you're concerned about losing your job and thus your health insurance. If that happens and you can afford it, you can pay the premiums and keep your old health insurance through COBRA. I'm not sure on the details, you'd have to do some googling.

I'm not sure at all how I'd deal with this. I'd try to err on the side of spending more time with my dad.

[NicksDad1970]

I dunno, maybe talk it over with your wife and see what she thinks. I wouldn't take just what she says but what you think she wants to say.

Can you and your sister etc chip in and get some other assistance for your father? If so then I'd go the route of being there when you can and go from there.

I'm really sorry about your situation and best of luck.

[psionic storm]

i dont think i can stress the importance of having his own son by his side. it will really help boost his morale thats needed for this fight.

whatever happens with your job and money, im sure you'll find a way out. but if you dont go to your dad, i have a feeling its going to be one of the things you'll regret in life.

good luck

[SlowHabit]

Tough situation to be in. I probably wouldn't know what to do either. However, one thing to keep in mind, your family and job will be there in the future. Once your dad leaves, he's gone forever and any type of regret is forever engraved in your heart.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
4. The aspect of, how will I feel if my dad really is in his last hours and I'm not there...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry about your difficult time, and I'm sorry I dont' have much advice for you. Hopefully the simple fact that there are replies to this thread, whatever they might contain, will be of some comfort.

The only piece of advice I can offer is to find a way to get past #4. That is, accept that you might not be there and deal with it now. Otherwise the stress before it happens and the guilt after it happens can really hurt you. One way of dealing with it would be to schedule a session or 2 with a therapist specializing in serious illness/death. Another way might be to simply ask your dad the same question, if you think it's not inappropriate to ask him. He might want to talk about that too. Visit your dad for sure, but without necessarily "living" by his side until the end. Good luck.