Update for the worse

[Boogie74]

Continued venting…

Background:  J’s immediate family is currently sick with COVID- both parents, her sister and her nephew (all under one roof).   Due to a very poor prognosis with COPD and a history of cancer treatment, her father was prescribed Paxlovid- which if taken over the next 5 days has a roughly 90% chance of saving his life.

Latest update- due to a combination of mis information, lack of education, a fatalist attitude and (in my opinion) pure stupidity, her father has decided that he doesn’t like the stomach upset the pills give him- so he will “just take his chances- after all, he’s survived flu infections in the past”.    He appears to be under the impression that if things get too bad to handle he can just start treatment and go from there.  I can’t be sure, but I also believe that he may not understand that when you are put on a ventilator, you go to sleep and in some 75-80% of COVID cases, you don’t ever wake up.

J is beside herself.   She can’t convince her father to save his own life and her mother has resigned to “Well, all you can do is pray and God will decide!”  Most of her family is either silent or very hands off and at the stated position of “well, if he feels better without the pills, he’s a grown man- let him decide what he wants to do” as though it’s a decision to take an aspirin for a headache and the decision is suffer the headache because you don’t like the heartburn.  

I have (reluctantly) been resigned to staying supportive yet silent- despite my burning desire to shake all of them by the shoulders screaming “What in the F*CK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”  I am a supporter of dying with dignity and the right to refuse medical treatment- but I have a very big moral problem with a large family that collectively chooses to laugh this off as “oh well- silly dad!  He just didn’t want to take the pills and he’s dead now- GUESS HE LEARNED THE HARD WAY!”

I told J that I am reluctant to get involved for many reasons- both because I wouldn’t be listened to by any of them (any conversations including truth and reasoning gets me labeled a “know it all that can’t mind his own business”) and because (as I said above) I would wind up shaking them violently and screaming obscenities at them for their fatalism.  

I told her that if she wants me to do anything for her, I am at her side the whole time.   I said to her that I am so sorry she is going through this- that she has every right and reason to feel anger and frustration at all of this- and these feelings suck with a capital S.

With that, like a witness to a botched execution, I am reluctantly resigned to sitting back and watching the preventable disaster unfold in front of my eyes.

What’s worse, this is a farming family- but they don’t sell anything to the market.  They just have 10-12 cattle (they slaughter and eat one about once every 18 months), 35 some egg laying hens and about 100 or so acres of grass (to feed cattle).   NONE of the rest of the family is interested or has the capability to take care of this farm.   So I am concerned about major MAJOR fallout within the family if he passes.  I am not even bringing up this forecast to Jenny- assuming I’m right, my telling her this isn’t going to prevent it nor change it in any way and it would only cause anxiety and rage.  After all, why poke the dragon if he’s gonna wake up anyways?

I’ve been asked in the past to ask myself what I love about her that makes our relationship more than a co-dependent abusive relationship.   This is a huge part of it.   I see the giant rift between J and her family in terms of education, hope and reason- and that gives me something to believe in- something worth keeping a flame a light.   She gives me hope that with all the hate and pain and darkness in this world, there’s more than a tortured lifespan of 75 years- there CAN be beauty and hope.   She gives me that.

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[khibomsis]

Don't what to say to you Boogie except I am praying for you all. What a situation to be in   I am totally convinced I shall spend years in a state of wide-eyed PTSD about what we go through during CoVID.
You are absolutely right that there is nothing you can do but watch events unfold in all their sheer horribleness. Expect your beloved to dysregulate more than usual, as who wouldn't, and hold on to your temper. I have often found that being silent and just being there is all that is needed. And then life boils down to sheer admin in the end. Make sure that your own little corner of the family is secure and can weather the storms to come. You can't protect others from their own dysfunction.

I totally hear what you are saying. My pwBPD inspires me all the time, I see what she is up against and how hard she works to overcome. It humbles me.