by Sue Ruschman

Created on: September 07, 2009

Doemary My MIL

I haven't been equipped before this day to even write one word about this unfamiliar journey which began early last July.

We knew that my husband's elderly mother had breast cancer and colon cancer which had metastasized to her liver. My mother-in-law, who I will now refer to as Liz, resided about 800 miles away in another state. We were not close to her due to her history of alcoholism and the childhood abuse that my husband and his sister endured. Liz became a widow at thirty-two and never remarried. I had only met her once years ago when she remained intoxicated almost the entire week. I was raised United Methodist and hadn't encountered such behavior prior to meeting Liz. I visited her another time when we visited her home state and she was as sober as a judge because she was the primary caregiver for her eldest sister. We didn't know what to say to each other, so we smiled and nodded often.

Often geographical distance makes a person seem less real. As the old adage goes, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. We made the token phone calls for Mother's Day, birthdays and Christmas. Otherwise, we didn't visit, we didn't send letters, and we didn't nourish a relationship. We barely maintained one and it worked for us. At least we believed that it did. Then, Liz became ill.

She wasn't completely alone. Liz had her nephew who was a M.D., his wife and a niece who is a saint. Operations were needed for the colon cancer, treatments were necessary to keep the cancer at bay and we were still 800 miles away, pretending like she wasn't our problem. Her doctor nephew didn't understand why we didn't have a relationship with her because she was the sweetest lady. I briefed him on her children's childhood memories and he seemed to understand. I had no history with her except for a few phone calls to check on her and to say hello.

Then, she fell in her house and had to be hospitalized. Her nephew called us and said that we had to take responsibility for her and let her live with us. He told us that she could take care of herself because she had been doing so prior to her tumble. After much discussion between my husband, his sister and me, we agreed that she should come to live with us. It wasn't an easy decision, but we felt like it was our duty to take her into our home.

This frail eighty-five year old woman flew down here and we retrieved her in a wheelchair. I never saw her walked unaided. She used walker or rode in a wheelchair.

Her medications were

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