My mom has cancer. I live far away. She won't talk to me. (PART 2) (Advice is appreciated, but please hold it until I can post it all.)

But two days after getting back from vacation the background check completed. I received my welcome letter, ext. So that Friday, I told my supervisor I received another job offer, so I was leaving. There was a whole thing about PTO, which left a bad taste in my mouth. But I still did my best to end things as cordially as I could. So I worked there the next two weeks. Gave back all the company equipment. Got all the off boarding information about insurance and benefits ext. I had 1 week in between leaving my former job and starting my new job. Was looking forward to sometime off.

During all this happening, my mom never called me once. When I tried to call her, she basically said that she was on vacation with her boyfriend and she would call me when she can. Which she never did.

Then it was the Saturday after the last day of employment of my former job. My boyfriend gets a text from my mom. Basically saying that she finally went to the emergency room, and she has cancer. She apparently could talk to me, so she thought if it came from him, it would be easier.

So here I was. Just quit my job, was getting ready to start my new job, and my mom who lives over a 1,000 miles away has cancer. What am I supposed to do?

At first things weren’t going too badly. My Aunt came to help my mom with anything. My brother was there being as supportive as he could. Her boyfriend was driving her to any appointment she needed. My cousin was also there helping out with anything. I felt okay. I felt like my mom has lots of other people around her to help. Things will be okay.

So I enjoyed my week off. I called my mom when I could. The doctors still didn’t know what the overall diagnosis was. They didn’t have a treatment plan. They didn’t have a prognosis. What would me being there do? I still looked at flights, hotel rooms, and rental cars. Just to be there for that one week, would have cost me nearly 2,000 dollars. Which I am in a place to be able to afford it. But who knows how long it would take the doctors to have an official answer to anything. Better to save for when I really need to be there, I thought.

I started my new job. I thought they would have given me a laptop, but it’s a desktop. My new job is still remote. I thought, if I had a laptop and I had to go to be with my mom, and I could still work. But they didn’t give me a laptop. This will be important later.

Now at this point, I need to add my other responsibilities. This year is also my second year as Treasurer for…let’s just call it NP Chapter. Being Treasurer isn’t that hard. It’s not that much work. I would say it’s maybe an hour or less of my time on the weekend. Every third Saturday we have meetings for about 2 hours. Then generally once a month all the officers have a meeting and those can last about an hour to two hours. But none of is really that big of a deal.

But during that same week when I found out I passed my background check for my new job. One of the other officers told us all that, their mother was diagnosed with cancer. Their mother lives in town. They have a solid job that they have been with for a few years at this point. All the officers understand her situation and we have all given her support and grace.

Then that same week I found out about my mom. When I told all the other officers, excluding the one whose mother also has cancer, they all basically brushed it off. They all said things like well my uncle has cancer, and my father in law has cancer. Basically they all acted like it wasn’t a big deal. Yet everyone gave the other officer tons of support. It’s not like any of them really know anything about me, or my life. Let alone my mother’s life. But it just stung.

(Please look for Part 3. This is long so there maybe more than 3 Parts.)