I went to the dr this morning to get checked over. I am okay, and will have a heavier than normal 'period' but otherwise normal. The blockage in my tubes cleared, everything has cleared, but I am heinously disappointed. The IVF clinic want to know if I am still interested in donating. I have made an appointment to talk about it next week.
I think I still will when I am recovered, but without the chemo drugs.
Came home, felt ill so I lay down on the sofa for a bit. Then Andy and the girls came round and he asked what I'd been up to. When I said I've been to the doctor, he guessed what happened. Luckily (I think?) he didn't react badly, in fact I didn't get any reaction at all except for an 'I'm sorry' and 'are you still bleeding now?'
I asked how he was and about his dad. They are amazed that he has lasted this long. The doctors told him on the 19th that he only had a few hours to live and he's still here now so apparently the doctors have a bit of renewed hope.
They keep trying to reduce his sedation and see how he copes on his own, but every time they do that, his blood pressure sky rockets and his heart rate goes all erratic, until they have to up the sedation again. They are going to try him on a different sedation drug and see if that helps.
If he doesn't start trying to breathe on his own they may consider reducing his life-support until his heart fails but they haven't reached that decision yet.
In his sedated, ventilated state he is quite stable so we are now thinking he may have another week or more left, if he doesn't recover - rather than the day or so we first thought.
The girls asked to play in the garden and we both said (at exactly the same time) 'Okay, but stay in the garden and don't go near those boys'. That was quite funny.
They went out and Chloe and Kyle came round to play too.
While they were in the garden, Andy talked about his dad and his feelings a bit more and I tried to say appropriate comforting things. I told him how well I thought he was holding it together.
Then the girls came back in and started playing with toys in DD4's bedroom and brought them into the living room and littered the entire house with toys from one end of the carpet to the other, LOL.
Andy went on my Yahoo messenger and figured out how to work the radio so he played loads of rock music (quite good, actually).
Then I made drinks for the girls and coffee for me and Andy, and handed round the biscuits that I bought especially for today. We all got through the whole packet!
I can't remember how it started, but Andy brought up the subject of my mother; I think because his father is dying, my R with her is on his mind. He kept pressing me to see her and said that 'she keep trying to gain your approval and can't'. I told him it was the other way around. He said that she told him that because I chose to raise the kids so different from the way she raised me, she thinks I am saying she was wrong to bring me up the way she did and that I don't approve of how she looked after me. I said that is ridiculous, I am Jo and she is her and we are 2 different people. I might have made different choices for my kids, but that doesn't mean I was shunning her.
He told me that neither of us would be the first one to make a move and we both had to want an R. I said to him that I didn't want an R with her anymore. I reminded him that she called me a 'sexual divient', and a 'liar' in a letter to the judge in the middle of my custody battle and she near on accused Andy of rape. The woman is completely barking mad. I said 'Andy, I was molested, on Christmas Eve, of all nights, and I turn to my mother and she calls me a sexual divient to the judge right before my custody trial for the kids. How can you expect me to forgive her for that?' He said life is too short to hold grudges. He said she only attacks because she feels threatened by you, she still wants your love and acceptance.
I told him I tried. I tried for years and the last time I saw her (Christmas 03) I showered her with presents and wine and brought a film round I thought she would enjoy. I busted my gut trying to be friendly and after only the 2nd visit to her in a year, she does that, to the judge in my custody trial! I said, Andy, some people are just plain bad for you, and some people you can't have an R with no matter how much you want one. I then reminded him that our own family was in dire straits and that my ONLY priority now was the kids and trying to keep things on an even keel with him and avoid disagreements etc. I said that and trying to keep my own life positive was as much as I could do, and that didn't leave any energy left over for trying to fix my R with her.
He looked sad and frustrated, as if he was bugged I wouldn't concede to his point of view, and said he thought my issues with my mother and the fact that she too had been estranged from her mother were the reasons why I wouldn't agree to his idea of a visitation schedule with the girls (the 2 days a fortnight he has been trying to get me to agree to since he left, which is no where near long enough and which I will never agree to).
I didn't particularly want to get into another visitation argument over why I think 2 days a fortnight is an insult, so I just said to him that my grandmother and my mother hated each other virtually their whole lives and that's why they didn't speak, and I couldn't speak to my mother because of all her control and emotional abuse issues - I was 'estranged' from my children, NOT because I hated them, but because a court said I had to be, and after 3 years of fighting over them, I was too worn out to even settle it; I'd rather give in and have a peaceful life.
Andy looked sad and a bit 'haunted' and said 'Yes, but at least if you hated them that would be an emotion, that would be love; you're so neutral, blank, almost.'
I told him that losing my kids and going through that awful court battle for 2 and a half years, having everyone flame me repeatedly when I had done nothing wrong, just broke me completely and it was hard to feel much after that. I told him that if we managed to stop fighting over them, maybe more feeling would come back over time.
He started to look really upset/pissed off so I said (more gently), 'I know why you're saying all this; it's because your dad is in hospital and showing you the fragility of life. You don't want my mother to die and me to regret it; you don't want the kids to grow up and repeat the same pattern with their kids. You are seeing that time runs out and we don't have forever, so you want to fix the family. I know you are saying all this because you care about me, and I appreciate the fact, esp. while your dad is so sick, but my mind is set as far as my mother is concerned.'
He nodded and accepted my statement and we actually managed not to have a row!
Then I went to cook the dinner and tidy up in the kitchen and he came and showed me this watch he had on that he said was his father's, that he had bought him for his 60th birthday last year and had his name engraved on the back. He showed me the engraving. Honestly, he just looked so sad.
I said, 'Andy, I'm so sorry, love.' and he said 'Can I have a platonic hug?' He hugged me and then I pulled away rather awkwardly and tried to make a joke out of it. 'Platonic? Oooh er, Mr Jones! Is that why I'm 'dear' instead of 'dearEST' these days?' He made this face at me and said he didn't remember what he called me.
We all ate dinner together (not much, admittedly, as I had to make food meant to 2 people stretch round 6) - I went without sausages (vegi ones) so that Andy and the girls could all have them. He said thanks and that he appreciated me.
Then I asked the girls to tidy away their toys as he wanted to leave. Instead, he got talking about his dad again so I offered to bake some real food for him to eat at the hospital when he visits him. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder and said thanks.
Then he and the girls all asked if they (the girls) could stay the night and he asked if I'd watch them tomorrow while he goes to the hospital? I said yes to both. The girls were all excited about sleeping over for the first time since March and I was a mixture of pleased and scared, but decided to bite the bullet anyway.
Andy left and as he was leaving, he hugged me again, which was a bit unexpected.
I don't have a thing here for the girls. They don't even have any PJ's so I dug out all my dressing gowns (I own 3 of them) and told them to wear those. You should see DD3 in my dressing gown - she's only 6 and she drowns in it!
DD1 is sleeping in my bed, DD2 is on a camp bed, DD3 is on a fold out chair-bed next to my bed, DD4 is in her usual bed and I will sleep on the sofa tonight - it opens out into a double bed so I'll be comfortable enough.
