pseudo aunt and other matters

My mom said my dad talked to pseudo aunt and uncle this weekend. My dad's accompanying them as they meet with three different cystic fibrosis physicians in southern California.Pseudo uncle will complete his medical residency in the region, so pseudo aunt needs to be hooked up with a southern CA doctor. Pseudo uncle won't know for another two months or so in exactly which facility he will complete his residency, so she'll just go with the best physician in the region as opposed to the one that's closest to the exact locale in which they settle. She won't even see a specialist in Utah unless the specialist in CA chooses to have her linked to someone closer to home in the meantime. Her parents apparently have a great deal of money, and cost of flying from Utah to California even as often as every week isn't a factor.

By the way, I don't think she had any idea how wealthy her parents are. Her father's a doctor, and doctors pull in decent salaries, but doctors don't typically have the type of wealth her parents have amassed. My mom said early in her dad's career, he made a few really lucky investments, and as his means for investment increased, he invested more than was probably prudent to invest in some technology stock, but it panned out for him. I don't know the exact nature of his investments or the numbers we're talking about, but it's probably eight zeroes to the right of the decimal point and to the left of the actual numbers. Pseudo aunt knew her parents were financially comfortable, but probably had no clue as to the magnitude of their wealth, and wouldn't have given it a great deal of thought anyway because it's her parents' money and not hers. I don't think she even knew that her dad didn't have to work anymore if he didn't want to.

What the money means now is that pseudo aunt doesn't have to work. Her parents wouldn't have offered her the option of not working if there weren't medical necessity involved, although they are subsidizing two of her brothers' wives so that they'll stay home with their babies instead of resturning to work full-time. I'm pretty sure pseudo aunt didn't even know that.

Pseudo aunt, on the other hand, is not entirely sure that she's ready to pack it all in right this very second in terms of her actual teaching job. She feels that she has some responsibility to her students. Her husband and parents think she needs to get the he!! out of the school system to spare herself the exposure to germs, at least until her condition is more thoroughly evaluated. She's also a full-time law student, so the overwork angle is there as well, although I'm told it's secondary to the issue of exposure to pathogens.

The nice thing about her parents' financial situation is that some things that would be very real problems to other people are now non-issues for her. She'll be leaving her teaching job in June at the very latest. The basic plan would have been for her insurance coverage next year to be through her husband's employer. Now, however, a new carrier is not going to cover her if given a choice. (I don't know how Obama care figures into the equation. Perhaps the new insurance carrier could be forced to cover her even with the newly diagnosed condition under the new plan.) In any event, it's a non-issue. Her parents will pick up the premiums for her old policy once her school district no longer pays them.

Pseudo-aunt isn't happy about being financially dependent upon her parents. They do pay her law school tuition, but only because there is still money in an "educational expenses only" account for her since she had a full tuition and living expenses scholarship for her undergraduate education. She feels that her parents will think they have a right to tell her how to live her life if they pay some of her living expenses. They probably will tell her how to live her life, my mom says, but probably not much more than they would even if they weren't contributing to her expenses. Her parents are good people, but they are opinionated, and they think that she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does. She's twenty-three. My mom says many people around that age struggle with breaking away from their parents.

Right now she is on one side and her parents and husband are on the other side regarding whether or not she should continue to teach. Her husband has never sided with her parents against her. I'm watching anxiously to see how this one turns out. I hope she makes her choices, whatever they are, based on what is the right thing to do and not based on the desire not to be told what to do by her parents. My mom says I'm a fine one to talk when it comes to that.

I met with the director of our program today. It turns out he's a close friend and former medical school classmate of my father's. I should have guessed as much. I recognized him as an usher from my parents' wedding pictures, though he's much older now. The man knows basically everything that's ever happened in my entire life. This does not bode well for me. He told me to quit waging insurrection in his hospital ward.

On the other hand, however poorly my parents' acquaintance with the director bodes for me personally, it's much worse for the rottweiler b!tch from he!!. She's now on paid administrative leave pending investigation. There were problems besides the ones she had with me, but my situation was the immediate impetus for the investigation. The psychological intern told me she'll probably resign to halt the investigation. I'll be hailed as a hero in our wing, at least until something else more exciting happens.

I have seven-and-one-half more days until I leave the incarceration of this place to relocate to incarceration of my own home. Grounding has not yet been rescinded. I'm still hoping but not holding my breath.