Sick

Posted by Anonymous.

Let me tell you about this man I know- I call him my father-in-law, because my husband calls him "Dad." Really? He was the shittiest kind of stepfather, withholding love, affection and worthwhile gifts while showering my husband's sister, his bio-child, with everything that he could. But my husband doesn't seem to resent it, he still calls him Dad.

My "father-in-law" has Hepatitis C. He also has a secondary disease that I have alluded to above that I like to call "Serious Asshole Disease." He has had Hepatitis C now for going on fifteen years- I have been with my husband for six of those years. During the first two, I rarely saw him. We were young, and the only time he came out of his room was to pull the intimidation route (note to parents, also to self- intimidating your kid's friends and/or significant others will not make them like you) At the top of the third year, he came out of his room and started smoking pot. Then drinking. My mother-in-law packed up and left- she said that if he could not live for his family, couldn't leave that back bedroom to eat dinner or talk to his kids but he could do so for drugs and alcohol then she didn't want anything to do with him anymore. He then started doing Pharmaceuticals. He swore he wasn't. Years pass, this behavior continues. We took him to the hospital last Christmas Eve because whatever he was on started a major GI bleed. (He lived.) That was my daughter's first Christmas Eve.

He came home and managed to fall and hurt himself on the next major holiday (I couldn't make this up, this kind of thing always happens on a holiday)That time he was just drunk. He turned a corner then, said that he had changed. My mother-in-law took him back. My sister-in-law started talking to him again. My husband believed him, hell, I believed him. He was convincing.

A month later the Hep C started kicking his butt. He ended up in the hospital and things got weird- he was disoriented and "off"- he even cursed out my preacher- but that was the disease. When liver failure starts kicking in majorly, it causes some people to lose their heads a bit, or so I am told. He got out of the hospital and went to all of his appointments, and got on the liver transplant list for our state.

Three months in, and we start noticing weirdness. He would get oddly aggressive when talking to people, stirring people up, even when talking to my not quite two year old. Have you ever seen somebody pick at a child until the kid is screaming and they are all the while laughing while the child is upset? That's what he does. One night I saw him fix a drink and take a swig. We made eye contact, and he poured it down the drain. I was still angry, so I asked him why he was drinking again. He told me a sip wouldn't hurt him. My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and husband confronted him, and he mocked them.

This month he went to a checkup at the liver doctor. He quit smoking for two weeks and didn't drink for a bit and went for his checkup. The doctor moved him down the list, said that he was doing better. That was three weeks ago, he is now drinking openly, smoking again, and I acting a lot like he's back on the pharmeceuticals again. Today he went to the regular doctor and was supposedly told that he's better now! He doesn't need a new liver at ALL, and he is off the list. I think he got kicked off, that they found something in his blood system that proves that he isn't a good candidate for a new organ.

He isn't a good candidate. Hep C causes cirrosis of the liver. A new liver will give the Hep C patient a good chance to live a LONGER life, but it isn't the golden ticket. He will always have Hepatitis C. If he won't behave, then he will destroy the new liver too.

We have tried confrontation, we have tried trusting him. I even told him that if nobody cared then we wouldn't ask about it, would not even ask about the drinking. We don't know the truth about the doctor visits, we don't have a clue what is going on.

I am angry. He made my husband's childhood so hard, and now his twenties too. He has no respect for my mother-in-law or any of my husband's or my family. I wish that if he was going to commit suicide, that he would just do it already and save us all the pain of watching this destruction. He told my sister-in-law that he didn't care if he lived to walk her down the isle later this year or not. We've asked if he was depressed- he mocked us.

I don't want to see my kid get hurt by this man. She is his first grandkid and he doesn't seem to care - she is only two, but she is a very AWARE two year old, you know?