A rant

[hyphenate]

My SIL, who has colorectal cancer, and recently found out she is in remission, believes she knows everything about medicine. In fact, she claims to know everything about all my various maladies as well, and trivializes them as much as possible--you see, according to her, anything I have pales in comparison to her battle with cancer.

It's all well and good about her needing to know everything about her own problems, but it pisses me off to no end when she starts to lecture me, especially when she feels she comes from a superior vantage point.

On my diabetes: I shouldn't eat anything, especially "sweets" because it sends my glucose levels sky-high. I just need to eat veggies and fruit, and in her eyes, that's about it. And yet, she can make such items as beef wellington and eat it, but no, I can't get away with having jello, chocolate, etc. Oh, and liquids--since tea isn't water, I shouldn't drink it, I should have 8 glasses of water a day and nothing beyond that.

On my fibro: just walk more, she insists, and I've tried to tell her over and over and over again that you can't walk without the energy to go and walk, and even with the cane, it's getting more difficult all the time to walk even the short distances I do manage. Oh, and I shouldn't be taking so many meds at might, because half my problem is with all the "drugs" I take, but it's okay for her to have her Xanax, and her LorTabs, because she has cancer. But no, I shouldn't be on any drugs at all.

The diet: this is the single most annoying thing she harps on about. And I've told her, it's none of her fucking business what I eat or drink, and she even called a close friend to tell him what I was eating, and now I've got the two of them criticizing my food and drink intake. Last time she started on that, I asked her when she got her medical degree, and it eventually led to her clamming up, but she goes on almost every conversation to tell me what choices I should make for my "diet." I tried, fruitlessly, to tell her there is no such thing anymore as a "diabetic diet" but she fails to hear me on the subject.

I told her the doctor ordered an endoscopy because I have been so weak and exhausted all the time, and she thinks it might be anemia, but SIL laughs and says the "state" is paying out for useless tests for me, though her expensive tests are warranted because she has cancer.

She used to go on and on about her "great health" and how all my illnesses could be blamed on my weight and not taking care of myself. Oh, and how she wouldn't have survived the cancer except for her wonderful skills in taking care of herself. I told her there are hereditary diseases that a person can't control (in my family history, of which I am only knowledgeable about the maternal side, there is a history of heart disease usually caused by high cholesterol, and diabetes), and while she blows me off, she goes on about how her mother died young from colorectal cancer, and how if she had known, she wouldn't have gotten to stage 3.

I managed to get her on the medical degree part, but she still insists that I've led a slovenly, unhealthy and miserable lifestyle, and as a result, I'm suffering the consequences of such a lifestyle.

Okay, I know she's clinging to hope, which is fine, but there should be no need to be condescending to others about their lifestyles. As I've tried to tell her, it ain't nobody's business but my own, and that's it.

I did see the doctor yesterday, and my blood pressure was extremely low: 94/40. I've been feeling light-headed as well, so I need to be careful. We're trying to raise it somewhat by taking off one of my BP prescriptions, and I have another appointment in a month. Then we can see what's going on.

But I get so frustrated with SIL, especially when she starts acting like she's a medical expert. I'm sure others have people in their lives who will go off on all the things they supposedly know that you don't. How do others deal with them? I understand the psychology of why they do it, but I want ways to tell her how to go to hell when she starts up.

[Warpy]

1. You do have my sincere sympathy

A response to a demand for physical activity should be a simple "I'm not up to it right now, you go without me."

Anything that starts her on a lecture needs to be greeted with a quick exit. That's right, just walk away. Leave the house. Get in your car and take a drive, even if it's just to a convenience store and back. When you do get back, just ask, "Are you done yet?"

I used this approach on my parents during their mercifully brief Limbaugh flirtation and it worked pretty quickly.

Grownups don't need to be lectured on anything by anybody unless they have asked for advice and are ready and willing to listen to it.

Your sister in law needs some potty training, that's all.

[lizerdbits]

2. What a nut

You could ask her detailed questions about your medication or conditions and when she can't answer make a snark about how you thought she was so well informed and you're totally shocked she doesn't know. But that's just my smartassery approach. That might not work with a SIL, unfortunately it's family you have to put up with, like my BIL's family who is convinced the right clothes and toys will later "turn" kids gay. (He's not like that at all.) His brother actually scolded my mom for calling one of my nephews "pretty" when he was about 6 months old saying she would "give him a complex." :eyes:

You could also take a book or magazine with you and start reading when she does this. Well I guess that's smartassery too.

From what little I know about fibro it's extremely painful and there's a lot of fatigue, how the hell are you supposed to be more active with that?

I think I would get to a point where I would say "I guess if you took care of yourself you wouldn't have cancer." Not true since it's in her family and not that nice either.