Believe it or not, there is ANOTHER Pancreas Song.

Argh! We keep talking about calling our parents and I keep reading and forgetting to CALL MY PARENTS. I am calling my parents now.

I asked my sister why my mother wasn't replying to my emails, and then my mother replied to my emails. That was so much simpler than calling her or asking her myself.

Of course, that reminds me that I need to reply to her email now.

My mom did that with her double mastectomy 4 years ago.

There's distance between my mom's partner and me; there was a while when 6 months or more would go between contact, to avoid making mom's partner lose her temper with me (she hates children in a way that makes me look like the Best! Parent! Ever!, and she has trouble seeing my sister and I as adults instead of my mom's kids...anyway)

After one of those long silences, my sister says, casually, "Mom's physical therapy is going well."

?!?

"Physical therapy?"

And she looked at me and went perfectly white. "Oh. They didn't tell you. The doctor found unusual tissue, mom had both breasts removed, she's in PT to help make sure the scars don't pull her into a bad posture."

?!!?!!??!?!!?!?!?

And so on.

Oh sweet zombie Jesus, SH. That's how you found out? How unbelievably sucktastic.

Barb, that neighborhood is close-ish to us.

Calling parents, right. I will do that once I am done eating dinner.

Why do parents not want to share these things with us? I found out my father was in the hospital when his ex wife called me to check in and see how i was handling the news. *sigh* "I didn't want to bother you". Right? Wrong! It's usually worse to hear it from a third party.

With me it was because I was the "baby." Younger by nine years than the Prince of Darkness and fourteen years than my sister. Never mind that my sister tells me everything and well does Mom know it. I think, actually, she depends on that, to spare herself of having to tell me anything.

The other reason is because my mother has some freakish privacy issues along the lines of "it's none of anyone's goddamned business."

My mother was going to go into hospital and have her gall bladder removed without telling us kids anything.

We were 15 and 12, living at home. Like we weren't going to notice she was gone? Crazy people. But I hide medical stuff from them because they deal really badly with it. They get all clingy which makes it worse.

Yeah, our parents are both on the same lines as that. It's major surgery, SO's dad. You're having an organ removed. WE WANT TO KNOW! It only came up because we were traveling halfway across the country to help out with my mom's surgery, which was happening the week after. Then we felt like crap because we didn't offer to help out with his dad's surgery. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!

Sorry for the asscaps. I can't asscap at our parents, so.

Anyway, I think all parents are like that.

And I still didn't call my mom, even after saying here I was going to. And now it's 10:30 there so I can't. This was easier when they lived in Hawaii and I could call at midnight my time.

Barb, I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, though. Both of our families were not thrilled when we moved away from them, and they totally understood the reasons. But you just have to stand by it and do what's best for you and your immediate family.