Three Ring Circus

We phoned the paeds rooms to be told once again, in a mocking tone, that there was absolutely NO WAY that we could see him. he was booked out until September…2010! How stupid are we to think that we might actually be able to get in to see the only doctor who knows anything about Ivy?

When David (phone phobia, friends, remember?) mentioned that the dermatologist asked us to keep in close contact with the paed the receptionist snarled… "well, I think you’ve got that covered".

I have to say that when David relayed this to me, I was upset, no, I still am upset but my angry tears have stopped. For now.

I feel guilty for interrupting their more important lives with my niggly little problems…say, a child who won’t get better.

I feel hurt knowing that they think we are pains in the behind.

I feel bad for feeling those things because, really, I shouldn’t.

As David says, it shouldn’t matter what the small minded people think. It should only matter that we do what we have to do to make Ivy right. It’s true.

I can’t help feeling awful though. Like I have broken some rule that clients will not disturb their doctors. Ever.

I admit, the last few months have been full on and we have needed to call constantly for more scripts, to see what to do next, to throw ideas around. I know they are all over it. I can hear it in their voices but do they think we are having the time of our lives? Do they think we are calling just because we are lonely out here in the boonies?

I would love to ask them. I would like to know, would they not do the same for their babies? If they had a child who was chronically ill with SOMETHING that no one can adequately diagnose, wouldn’t they be worried? If their toddler cried all day long, had discharging ears, blistered bottom, a wet chest, would they not want to do ANYTHING they could to help that  little child?

I think they would.

So, why does the receptionist judge us?

Why does it hurt so much that she does?

I hate this.

I’m working on a fun post. I am I promise you.

It’s just that I have my hands full at the moment. I never knew that one little girl could cry so much.

Bare with me.

Ours is a sad story. My relationship with him was full of fear and hurt.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some good times. Periods in my life when I remember him as a good father.

He was a wanderer.

My mother did the best she could as an almost single parent. Their marriage ended when my brother died. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He was already having an affair, had been for years, it seems, with the company’s accountant and was in Europe with her when my brother died. He didn’t come home for the funeral.

I wouldn’t have divorced him, I would have killed him.

He changed the day I introduced him to his newborn grandaughters. Mellowed.

Became a Grandfather.

Don’t get me wrong, he was not reformed. He still hurt me, only in different ways.

With the children though he was a different man, someone who I came to admire. He adored them all, especially the boys. He was there when William died, almost cried.

On June 26th 2005 (Lily’s birthday) we told him we were eight weeks pregnant with twins. He told us he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

I knew when he told us there was a secondary in the liver that he didn’t have much time but he went through treatment after treatment and surgery too. Anything to preserve his life on this earth, all be it with little quality. He was just waiting to meet the babies.

In the days leading up to his death we spent time with him and he spoke in earnest about his estate and how it would be. He said we could trust her, the Evil Step Mother (ESM). Also known as the Wicked Witch of the West.

He was wrong, he was wrong about so much.

He wanted the boys to be looked after. He had divided the estate accordingly but not until the ESM had died too.

Now she wants me to sign that away. She wants me to say that he wanted her to have everything.

His will makes it so that she can have it. All of it, despite his constant reassurances and pleas that the children be looked after.

If I sign the forms she will take his estate and change her will and the boys (and my family too) will get nothing.

My Mum and my Aunties are up in arms, urging me to fight it all the way.

David says we are not in a position to fight, that we need to protect ourselves. She is, after all the evil step mother, with my father’s money to throw around.

I want to fight, I do but I don’t want to jepodise my family. It’s so complicated.

I am sad, disheartened that my father would allow this woman to do this. I am pressured, feeling as though I am some pawn in a game of hate. I am angry that after all my father did to me, to my family, to my mother, after all he trumpeted about caring for those of us left behind, it seems now that his intent was a false one…again.

A mask to make everyone believe he was a good man.