I've been teary eyed everytime I read a new post. Thank you all for sharing your stories and thus identifing with my sadness. There are parts of our lives that we are never totally prepared for. It helps to link arms with those who have "Been There". Thank you. The doctor has decided that no further Chemo is reccommended. He feels that the COPD (empheseama) may be his ultimate demise anyway, not the lung cancer. My question is "Why didn't you consider that before you put him through Chemo for the lung cancer"??????? He also has diabetese. The steroids had his blood sugar up over 500 for weeks. I think all things needed to be considered before aggressive treatments were started. This has been a very good life lesson for me, AFTER THE FACT. I wanted to share this with you all as well. If you have multiple deseases go to specialist's for each of them before agreeing to fight a new one with chemo. EXample: Your heart doctor may tell you that statistically you have only 3 years to live. So why would you aggressively fight slow growing colon cancer?? There was an article last week on MSN News about this very thing but I do not know how to do links or transfer a link from my favorites list yet. If anybody missed the article and want it, I will try to copy down the web address for you. Susie

Hi, Kay. Yes, she is going through all of the paperwork, and she is getting a bit overwhelmed. My dad left everything to her, and my sister-in-law, who is an accountant, is the executor of the will. She is doing most of the work, but they are waiting on the official death certificate before the house can be put in my mom's name. She can't sell until that is done. She also has to get rid of the car, since she doesn't drive, but one of my brothers needs a trade-in, and he is going to buy the car from her ( at a fair market price, of course). My dad did have his affairs in order, and all of the investments were in my mom's name anyhow, so she doesn't have too much to do. Right now she is slowly going through the house getting rid of things she won't need in an apartment. They lived in the same place for 44 years, so it's quite a big job, although in recent years they did begin to clear out a lot of junk. The biggest job is already done. My dad was into model trains, and had a huge set-up in two rooms in the basement. He had literally hundreds of cars, plus little villages, etc. He kept all of the boxes, but it still took us the better part of a week to dismantle the whole thing. The trains are going to be divided up between my brothers, and my mom didn't have to do a thing. We have been very fortunate that there have been absolutely NO arguements over money or disposing of posessions. I have heard so many stories about how a death in the family can bring out the absolute worst in people, but this is not the case for us. All of my brothers and I just want our mom to have as smooth a move as possible, and to end up with as much money as she can get. She is anxious to sell, she finds there are just too many memories in the house, and she wants a fresh start. Hopefully, she can be settled in her new place before the winter weather begins.

Sharon, I am so sorry for you and your family. I lost my dad in April; he had just turned 72. He had liver cancer, and lasted only 4 months from the time he was diagnosed. I wish I could say something to make you feel better, but what I can tell you is that you may feel a sense of relief when your dad passes. Of course you will still grieve for him and miss him, but knowing that he is no longer suffering may bring you some peace; it did for me. I still miss my dad terribly, but I think he is watching over me and my family. Two weeks ago my husband totalled my car when he tried to avoid some debris on the highway. He walked away with minor srcatches- it was a miracle. I really think my dad helped him out. My thoughts are with you and your family at this difficult time.

Thanks, china cat. This whole thing is so surreal. I believe I might have mentioned this in a previous post, but my father's family has a long history of mental illness, largely borderline disorder and bipolar. Other things too. My father's mother and aunt both had to hospitalized due to these things. My father's aunt is still alive, and sometimes has "episodes" where she spends tons of money on crazy things (like 5 or 6 pricy vacuum cleaners), tries to accuse family members of stealing from her, and generally being very alienating. What I fear now is that my dad is slipping down that slope. He's always had a crazy temper and a huge fear of abandonment (both signs of borderline disorder), but now it seems he might be in some sort of manic phase as well. Of course, I could just be trying to rationalize things, because maybe I want to blame an illness rather than him. Who knows? One thing I do know is that I don't have to put up with people who treat me poorly, family or not. Some people think they have to put up with all sorts of horrible things from people for the sake of "family", but I'm of the opinion that family should treat each other well, and when they don't--see ya until you can act civilized! To answer someone's question earlier, my mom and dad had what they call "sweetheart" wills where they left everything to each other, and then to us kids. However, these wills might also be contractual wills. I need to look at the documents to tell, but basically, this type of will means that the husband and wife are making a binding contract with each to have their wills set up a particular way. So basically, my dad could never change his will to cut out me and my brother, because he made a contract with my mom that he wouldn't. This puts everything in a "constructive trust" for my brother and I, and a new wife could never touch it. This may or may not be the case for their wills. Honestly, I don't care about money or the house or whatever. But as a matter of principle, I'm willing to fight for my brother's interest in things--he does not have a very lucrative career and I know mom intended for him to have half the house proceeds eventually. If I really wanted to be nasty, I could litigate the thing for years, costing them tons of money and time. Of course, that's only if he does get married to this woman and things stay very sour. I try not to be vindictive just for the sake of it. All that said, I urge everyone to check up on their estate planning. Remember, you can never disinherit a spouse, unless they sign a pre or post nuptial agreement agreeing to be left out of the will. In every state that I know of, a spouse can always take a "spousal election" worth up to 1/2 of your estate, no matter what you have in your will. And get health care directives too. I worked in legal aid for a summer and it was heartbreaking all the situations that came up because people were not properly advised on how...