There's really no fun in our dysfunction

In case you were wondering what I meant by my "dysfunctional family" this is an excerpt from my younger sister's blog and how I just learned that my eldest sister is apparently going to start undergoing what was deemed completely unnecessary chemotherapy for her stage 1, completely removed fallopian tube cancer. I can only guess that my family is continuing to keep me in the dark as to what is happening with my sister because of what has been/is going on with us, as that was the justification presented to me when she was dx and we were dealing with the loss of DH's dad back in September. Unfortunately, this means that the lion's share of the common sense among of the bunch of us has been excluded from decision making...

"I did not have an opportunity to vote on the decision of whether or not to subject my developmentally-disabled sister to chemotherapy, but I am strongly opposed to the decision that has been made. The cancer was found in the wake of elective surgery, the point of which was to increase her comfort and quality of life. This was a good thing, both the surgery and the priority that justified it. However, I cannot see how putting such a physiologically, emotionally, and intellectually fragile creature, who is also pathologically cancer-free at this time, through aggressive and sick-making chemotherapy treatment is something that could be seen as consistent with the priority of increasing her comfort and quality of life. In fact, it is absolutely diametrically opposed to that priority. If the point of the chemotherapy is to prevent a future recurrence of cancer, there are many better and less invasive methods of prevention that could be adopted, which would be in keeping with that priority. However, this is not the direction or the path that has been chosen and I cannot understand or agree with it.

While this madness of poisoning my sister is going on next door in Wisconsin, I have to carry on with my daily life in Minnesota - trying not to be haunted by visions of her succumbing to the vile side effects of the treatments she will undergo in the next several weeks and months.

Through all the mental gymnastics and ruminations I have on the topic, I just keep asking myself: What happened to the priority? And I have to be satisfied with this very unsatisfactory reply: It has been overshadowed by lesser but more abundant concerns."