New to SharingOurDays -- This Cancer Survival

Nancy is in Canada and offers her very genuine account of her fight against cancer with a not-so-supportive family (that's my undertstatement for the day). Don't read this blog looking for much sunshine.

Here's the most recent post, from Monday, December 18, 2006...

open letter to my father at christmas time

I recently had to debase myself and ask my father for a loan to pay for a Speech Language Pathologist. Despite my Canadian address, rehabilitation for cancer survivors is not paid for by the government. They'll be happy to save your body, but to hell with your life!!

(Someday I'll tell you about how my father's wife once told me that not only do I NOT deserve financial support for my disabilities, but that I should pay the government back for my cancer treatment. She wasn't even trying to insult me ... she actually believed this drivel.) My father thinks that my reports about late effects are lies. (umm, New England Journal of Medicine?)

Here's an email I'm working on to send him (if only ...):

Since you mentioned it, if you're truly interested in improving my well being there are a number of things you can do. First is to starting insisting that your wife take full responsibility and apologize for her abhorrent and abusive attack against me in your home, that happened now more than three years ago.

And to apologize for the abusive and malicious comments that she's made in reference to my struggles. Namely, that "she pities me". I can't tell you how demoralizing it is to see you put your own selfish need to pacify your wife before defending your own daughter's right to be treated with dignity, honesty and respect.

Second is to acknowledge the full truth of the damage that has been done to me by way your abandonment and neglect and dismissal of my health issues. Instead of believing in me and advocating for me, you joined with the health community and wrote me off as a mental case in need of chemical restraints, restraints that you were only too happy to provide as a dutiful pharmacist and eminent business owner in our modest little hometown.

So not only failing as a father, but also corrupting your professional life. This ended any possibility of a public apology, since saving face publicly was priority one. Tell me, how DO you sleep at night. (Oh yeah, the easy access to narcotics.)

The point being, who the hell are you to expect a detailed explanation about what late effects treatments are for?

You've consciously chosen to remain ignorant about my situation and then are arrogant and presumptuous enough to interrogate me, in a pathetic attempt to save face and continue to undermine and ruin my reputation and credibility.

And, scene!