Dying man spends holidays in conflict as family disregards his end-of-life wishes. AITA?
"AITA for not informing my family of my cancer prognosis?"
Content warning: Talk of cancer and death.
I beat cancer once, having had to go through ablative treatments, radiation, and then finally a partial nephrectomy resulting in complete remission for six years. Now I have to contend with the fact I have cancer again, in a new location, that we didn't find until it had populated through other organs like a goddamn mutation parade. I'm dying.
In short: I beat kidney cancer only to develop a specific gastric cancer which spread into my liver and lungs before we found it. Survival rate shot down to a literal coin-toss deciding my life and then kept plummeting.
Targeted medicine wasn't working, shoving tubes into my veins to block the blood flow feeding the cancer wasn't working, and surgery wouldn't cut it because of how much it had spread.
We've escalated through a number of different medicines and dosages designed to stop the death march but there gets to a point where the cost of another month is too much, both on my wife and I and our wallets. So we've moved on to taking care of the symptoms instead, palliative not curative.
But OP, you asked if you're a jerk for not telling your family! Yea, I did, I'm getting there. It's Christmas man. I already told my family I had cancer again when I first found out and that it wasn't good odds.
Gave them a few updates that I was still undergoing treatment, when the previous medicines I was on had stopped working, and that we needed to get the tumors to shrink for surgery to even be an option.
Got a "oh well, this new medicine/intervention/treatment will do the ticket" response when I told them this time last year that surgery would not be an option and we had moved on to a different medicine yet again.
Like I'm not so callous as to ignore the fact my potential death just isn't something they considered. To them I beat cancer once, so I'll look and feel like garbage for as long as it takes but then I'm going to be back to normal and this will all be nothing more than a scary blip.
It's nothing, because there's no possible way I can die after having beaten the Big C once before. Partly that's why I wasn't about to sit their asses down on Christ our savior's commercialism birthday to say "surprise! It's a gravestone!" I have time still. I wanted to have one last semi normal Christmas and New Years with my family before I told them that I had a year left.
This went out the window because my SIL decided it was her moral obligation to hunt my mother down on FaceBook and tell her, so she could spread the word amongst them all so they could have their final holidays with me the way they want and not regret missing out on their last chances. Because forget the dead guy, right?
SIL told them two weeks before my wife and I flew in, and my family didn't tell me they knew because they knew I would be too hurt and angry to come visit. Pretty sure they also thought that once I got here I wouldn't feel able to leave which would give them plenty of time to tell me how selfish I am so I would work harder and through not being lazy and selfish I'll beat cancer again.
Like the ultimate "have you tried not dying?" I am struggling with the betrayal, the absolute audacity, the sheer gall. I'm sure that I have other synonyms I could use or phrases but the point has been made.
My wife's talked me down to staying in a hotel for a few days for distance rather than packing up and going home, because she knows right now I'm considering getting lost for the rest of my life.
She's also been fielding communication between me and my family so I don’t have to deal with the "but we love you and losing you hurts us so much, we had to have our Christmas with you" and "you should have told us.
How horrible for us that we had to find out from someone going behind your back" and "but here is this medicine that I read online about, why don't you tell your doctor you want to try this next?
Why won't you undergo medication treatments that are proven not to work well on your specific cancer? I read an article! Tell your doctors your mommy read an article and needs you to undergo unnecessary treatments!" and my personal favorite: all the "you're giving up and being selfish" nonsense.
She did call up her sister and read her the riot act, which was cathartic to hear at the time but right now I am just a bundle of pain. I know it's not so cut and dry. I know my family is grieving, they've had far less time to process than my wife and I have had, but I'm so mad and disgusted with them.
They aren't thinking about me at all. I should be able to rely on them but here I am having to console them and help them through their grieving process. They hadn't bothered to do anything more than call once in a while after the second diagnosis and listening to any discussion about my cancer for all of two sentences before they moved on to something else.
They just want to cram in all their sentimental stuff for their own sake and trample all over me. Like I'm some prop for their own emotional closure. Somehow trying to explain that to them results in them saying it's their last Christmas too so I can't be so selfish to ignore that and how it doesn't have to be my last one if I didn't give up.
Like I am so sorry I don't want to spend every last minute of my life puking and vomiting my guts out and damaging my heart and liver until those kill me instead of the cancer. I had this silly idea of spending time with my wife, I know, what a selfish monster I am.
God this is getting away from me and turning into a "eff my life" rant fest. I'm dying, I wanted to tell my family this after the new year. My SIL went behind my back and told my family and my family is hurt and angry and panicking and ignoring my needs and wants as a result.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
I am so sorry. I am so sorry about ALL of this. And at a time during which you have so little power or control that your SIL took this ONE thing you had control over away from you.
Boundries. Cool down. Explain you have limited time if they want to spend it with you no more talk about treatment and list anything else you dont want to talk about. This was never gonna be cut and dry.
Sounds like they know and just don't want to. Decide what will work for you and your wife. Don't feel guilty. This is one of the few cases where your family needs to meet you where you are at not the other way around. I hope you are at peace and this time left goes as well as it can for you.
KillerChristmas (OP)
I honestly feel more guilty about how my reaction and my insistence has put so much pressure on my wife. To be the calm, rational one while I'm losing my shit and telling her how I want to fuck off and die away from them, to how I forced her to be the one to deal with my family because I am incapable (and unwilling) at the moment, to everything she has had to deal with. Thank you, though.
It might help to say all of this to your wife get her reaction. Her point of view is gonna be way more important to you then internet strangers as it should be. Make a game plan with her. Explain how you are felling and ask how she is. You will probably be pleasently surprised it sounds like she really does loves you and want your time left to be good.
KillerChristmas (OP)
No I think it says something when I say that she is the reason why I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive. Like yes I lost part of my kidney, years to cancer treatments, uncountable costs for them too, and I'm dying. But I have her by my side and that is paramount.