My brother

[Quail_Cottage]

My brother has Leukemia and is undergoing bone marrow cell transplant this coming week. I do not live close to the Hospital (VGH) BC. My other brother is coming from Thailand as a donor. I have tried my best to keep in touch via email, and phone and visits but I seem to be the one in the family that he projects all his anger upon. We have a diverse family of 5 siblings who do not get along at the best of times so this is a very stressful time interacting with any of them. It has become so difficult I have pulled out of the family dynamics and am trying to cope with the anger thrown at me alone. It is my insight that anyone who my brother feels has let him down in some way, gets the anger. This includes myself for not being able to cope with his smoking and the impact on my life. It became huge when I said he could live with me when things began to get rough for him a year ago. Because I have health issues myself, the smell of the smoke, the inability for him to quit as requested of him before he moved in,all became too much for both of us and in anger and resentment, he left. Added to this, I was asked to care for my aging mother and my brother and left my home to travel a distance away to do this. I had to go back and forth and became exhausted. I did this for about 5 months before my brother was flown to hospital in Vancouver in critical condition. I dec. to bring my mother to live with me as I also have an aging cat who needed care in his own home. I was judged harshly by family members for doing this without their consent yet none of them had agreed to give up employment, their home or their lives at the time all this was needed. I was asked to go up and I did. I could not travel the highway in winter months safely so felt bringing my mother to live with me would be the best dec. at the time. A sister from N. Zealand and a brother from Thailand and a sister who lived a block away, threw all their fury at me for making this decision alone based on the lack of assistance I was getting from any of them. I had already been feeling abused by my brother from his cigarette addiction, his anger towards a failed relationship, his inability to cope with his situation at all when he had to move away 3,000 miles and come to live with me.. I tried my best to cope and accept him into my home. We both became frustrated with the smoke problem and the smell and he left and made a dec. to move in with my mother who at that time actually really needed a family member there to help her. We were going to share the care of coming and going but moving in seemed a far better thing under the circumstances. to be continued...