In my brain it made perfect sense to ask for a few days home alone with my daughter to get her situated before we tried to return the house to its normal state. I actually thought it would be no problem until I began to hear the hesitation and annoyance in jolly guy’s voice at the request. To add insult to injury jolly guy’s sister would be coming for a visit with her husband and daughter on the exact same day that it was we were to return home. So now not only would it be a four-hour drive with my disabled daughter in my car, returning home after a five-week stay away from home, it would be my younger daughter anxious to see her sister and get her mother back, it would be his two daughters anxious to return home from camp and see their “sister” and make sure she was ok, it would be jolly guy and the entertaining of his sister and her family. The thought of it all happening on the same day was more than I could bear and I began to get sick to my stomach. Why was this even an issue? Why didn’t everyone besides me see this as a little over the top for me to handle? Seriously I wasn’t wonder woman. I know I may appear to be, but realistically I wasn’t. So I began the slow insurgence of asking jolly guy if it was at all possible for his sister to stay at a hotel or another family members house this visit. They of course could come over during the day to use the pool or visit, but to actually have another family there during this time was making me nauseous. It took almost three days to convince him to even speak to his sister about it. Why would he not be the one telling her that it was all too much for us and that this wasn’t a good time for a visit? Was I crazy? Honestly was it me? Cause it sure as hell didn’t feel like me. And to top it off wouldn’t SHE know to offer not to stay with us during this time? Really? That was hard enough to get him to talk to her and his family about that let alone the idea of asking to have his mother possibly take the kids by her for three days. Three days. That’s what I was asking for. He made me feel like I was shunning them, casting them aside making them unwanted in their own home. I just needed a few days and unfortunately my daughter who was in a near death accident, as far as I was concerned, took precedent over anyone else at this time. We were a family and we needed to put ourselves back together and I needed three extra days to do that. Why was that so terrible? An argument of course ensued and I was the bad guy. I was selfish and unwilling to compromise. What? I WAS SELFISH? I was pretty sure I was the one living in a hotel for five weeks away from my family and friends and him. I was the one spending my days helping my daughter, my child, my first-born NOT DIE. Why was this a hard concept to grasp? I get that he just wanted everything to get back to normal, I get that he wanted to be able to spend time with his kids and have us home and enjoy his sister. I get all of that, but things were not normal and life could not get back to it if we didn’t take some steps to prepare ourselves. Mainly me. Mainly for me to not lose my cool. To not lose my mind. I knew the overwhelming responsibility that would be on me once we arrived home, from both my daughter, my other daughter, his kids and him. I knew it in my bones even if no one else wanted to admit it. So we had a phone session together with our therapist to come to some agreement on how things would proceed once we got home. He was not happy about this phone session. He felt ganged up on and on the outside. His thought was that it was his house and his family and kids could be there and I was making too much of everything. That everything would be fine. Of course it would be fine, because he wouldn’t lift a finger. I’d do all the cooking and cleaning and taking care of everything and I did not have the energy to do it all by myself. Not anymore. Too much had happened, too much pressure was on me. I was tired. I wanted to come home. I wanted my daughter to be better. Why didn’t anyone get that?