So much has happened since my last post! My FIL is in the hospital with diverticulitis (that's what they think at this point anyway) and he may need surgery. We had planned to head to NJ for the weekend together to see him and do what we can to help. However, my father has been urinating blood and has had some scares as his doctor tries to figure out the cause. His doctor biopsied his prostate last week (he had surgery last year) and thank God it came back negative but still no idea of the cause of the bleeding. Over the past week he has continued to bleed and had to go to the emergency room to be catheterized because a blood clot had formed and his bladder nearly burst because he couldn't urinate.. His doctor decided to leave the catheter in for now until they know what is causing him to bleed. The doctor cauterized the bleeding yesterday and actually ended up cauterizing most of the prostate. During the procedure my dad lost a lot of blood and almost needed a transfusion. So, I don't feel comfortable leaving when my dad is in such a precarious state as well so Russ is going by himself.
After this latest crisis with his parents, Russ and I had a serious discussion and we decided that we should not wait to move closer to them. The reality is that neither of them is in good health and his mother continues to show signs of developing Alzheimer's. The debt we accrued in moving here will not allow us to buy a house but we agreed that we would find a place to rent and sell this house to help get out of debt and hopefully be able to afford a house in a few years. We would be closer to my in laws to help out and neither of us like this area and really want to move. It's a win-win, right? Well, in all honesty I am having a difficult time with it since we made our decision. In my reading about npd, it is repeated that it is often necessary to break contact with a narcissist in order to preserve yourself. My rational mind understands this but it seems that my heart still holds a tiny speck of hope that my mother will change. After forty years I should know better. I do know better; I just hope I'm strong enough to go through with it. She knows we want to move but not that we have decided to do it much sooner than she expected. I fully expect her to have a meltdown of epic proportions. She will pull out all the stops to make me feel guilty enough to cave. I just pray that I have the strength to endure it and I pray that I'm making the right decision.
