I realize I’ve been away for awhile, but things here at home have been crazy.

My son is still in foster care; still pretty much ignoring us and doing whatever he wants, totally focused on his own wants, i.e., his driver’s license. His last visit was almost two weeks ago, and I suppose it went as well as could be expected, considering we are supposedly so dangerous we still need supervised visitation.

You know, where the caseworker sits there reading a book the entire time? And we’re supposed to interact like an intact family? And make progress toward that elusive, subjective “family reunification”?

Yep, that’s it. Fun, huh?

In the meantime, after a day in the ER and several days in the hospital, my husband was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He had a nephrectomy on June 1, hence the visit a few days prior. Which our son did not care about in the least.

Let’s take a moment to compare, if you will: my stepmother drove across the state to spend several days with us, helping out with our youngest child and keeping the home fires burning; our older daughter sat with us in pre-op and, of course, visited her dad in the hospital. Our other daughter flew in from another state to stay for a week to help us.

And what did our drama-loving son do? Nothing. Oh, he listened to my updates on the surgery and so forth; he responded, briefly, if I texted him or messaged him. But it always came back to him: his situation, his license, his life.

Then again, I was raised to be available for one’s family – we have other members who don’t seem to care about our recent troubles either. But I wasn’t involved in raising them, so I will take no responsibility for their actions. Really, though, you’d think an occasional phone call or visit or even, heaven forbid, responding positively to an outright request for assistance would not be out of the realm of possibility. I’m just sayin’….

So, we may or may not have court in two days, a trial to determine…. Wait a minute – what exactly IS going to be determined? The state has made allegations, but no one is really clear on who is being accused. The judge appears to want more information on why my husband cannot attend court – apparently having a kidney removed, a recent cancer diagnosis, and using Vicodin for pain control are not valid reasons for postponing a court date.

We wait, and wonder….

Another week has passed, my son is not speaking to me and, yes, he’s still in foster care. Apparently, he’s enjoying that.

He’s been to some place called Fun Town or Fun Times, out to eat, and to another Cardinals’ game. But not to visit his home.

No visits last week, no calls from the caseworker. An email sent to her agency bounced back – that’s the second time. No point in calling her, because she hasn’t returned calls yet, or been available at all throughout this fiasco.

On Thursday, I took my husband to the emergency room; after several hours, and finally seeing a doctor, the results of his CT scan showed a tumor on his right kidney.

In the midst of all this, my son called to whine about his driving permit expiring before the trial date – rather than pay a whopping $3 to renew it, he wanted me to give permission for him to get a license. It seems the state took me seriously when I said “not in this lifetime”, or words to that effect. Or my attorney spoke with the GAL. Either one works.

I told the kid I was just a little bit busy, and that his dad was in the ER. He got the point. Sort of.

So, my husband was admitted to the hospital and stayed there until Saturday morning. I was so thrilled that all the kids called him to say “hi” or “get well soon” or “thinking of you”. Or not. They eventually, mostly, got around to doing so on Sunday afternoon and evening. At least my daughter, who was coming up to visit anyway the first part of June, offered to change her ticket and stay a few days to help out. That’s something, right?

I talked to my son Thursday night, via Facebook of course, and told him what the doctors said: dad has a tumor which has a 95% or greater chance of being malignant, and that he will have surgery to remove the kidney sometime in the next week or so.

He asked a couple questions. Only one, really, pertained to that damned driver license. I simply told him I wasn’t going to get into that, at this time. I had other things to think about. Kids, huh? Oh, and he said he didn’t “do” flowers, but he’d send over sandwiches from work.

Not surprisingly, they never showed up – he said it was “technical difficulties”, but I know he continues to tell his friends that his dad “beat me up”, so there. Whatever. I am so angry with him, he continues to lie and be a jerk overall, yet expects me drop everything and cater to his wants. Forget it, Mister – your ship is about to sail.

Tomorrow we meet with the surgeon. Hopefully all the questions will be answered and the surgery scheduled; hopefully the kids will realize the seriousness of this. Or not. But there’s always hope.