What an ungrateful son I am

I'm grateful for everything she has done, but when she has problems I have no idea what to do

Right, I'll do some venting. Maybe this'll clear my head. TL:DR; at the bottom.

First of all, my aunt never, ever, calls me directly. All contacts from my family usually go through my mom. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a call from her late last night. I had to excuse my friend, who was visiting at the time. My aunt probably had couple of drinks down, considering how her speech was slurring a bit. Anyway, she told me that my mom is probably depressed and/or stressed out of her wit. Told me that she never has had to push my mom so hard over the years, at the end they were both crying their eyes out.

My mom has had some problems with couple of things, first her voice has been giving out randomly. She sounds like a squirrel trying to speak human language when it happens. According to her, it doesn't hurt or anything. It is just extremely annoying, since she can't work like that. That has been going on for several years now, usually she loses her voice 2-3 times a year. Well, if that wasn't all she was somehow able to break her foot at work. By stepping on a bottle cap. I wish I was joking with that, but her foot was in a cast for couple of weeks. The incompetent doctor that worked on her foot fixed it wrong, so now she has nerve damage and chronic pain. They tried to fix it several times, but the pain always returned. She keeps eating painkillers, and probably will for the rest of her life, to keep it at bay.

At last she got so pissed about her voice going away randomly, so she went to the doctors about it. The doctor was newly hired young lady from Estonia (or Lithuania, can't remember which). She took a look at my moms medical records, listened to the description of how my mom loses her voice randomly. Now, the next part is how my mom told it to me but on hindsight I think she was trying to play it cool. The doctor put up a new browser window on her 2nd screen, thinking that my mom can't see it. My mom has three sons, we all tried to be cunning and 'clever' about things like that too. Mom saw everything, the doctor typed her symptoms to GOOGLE. And diagnosed my mom with thyroid cancer, after checking couple of sites. Now, I tried the same thing but I couldn't get the same results. Maybe mom didn't tell me everything, but still. My mom nearly laughed at the doctors face after hearing it and she was in disbelief about the whole ordeal. Doctor was insistent and sent her to tests.

That was three-four weeks ago. Due to the long waiting times, she hasn't even had the cancer exam yet but bunch of other stuff. I was told that her blood sugar levels are off the charts and bunch of other numbers don't add up either (like blood pressure). She had intervertebral disc dislocation at some point as well. (I hope I got that right). My family, or so I was told, has a long history of cancers, blood pressure and heart diseases. The only thing I know is that our family has history of diabetes, especially the women. I'm at the risk group as well at the moment, being tad overweight but I'm working on that. Anyway, now my mom has to go through even more tests to rule out or confirm those other diseases. I was not told about the other stuff until my aunt called me, telling me that my mom has a very hard time telling me anything. Me and my mom are very independent, usually working our problems out in silence and by ourselves, extremely rarely depending on others. When my ex cheated on me and I was broken, I didn't ask for help but tried to work it out. But I cracked, after learning it was not the only time and how fast she moved on told me that she hasn't loved me in years. I called my brother 3 am and begged him to take me home, to mommy. I cried, couldn't sleep, depressed, cried some more and broke my phone, accidentally though. She was there for me, held me like a baby for an hour until I fell a sleep from it.

After my grandma passed away, my mom became the rock solid foundation of this bloody clan of ours. My aunt, uncle, grandpa, brothers and even my stepfather seem to depend on her. If they have problems, or worries, they call my mom. Uncle has gone through several surgeries and rehabilitations due to drug and alcohol abuse. Surgeries are from various reasons, mostly because he has hurt himself badly from falling or fighting. I don't know much about my aunt, to be honest. She lives so far away that I don't see her almost at all. Last time was probably over 10 years ago. I'm not gonna go through them all, but there is various things being dumped on my mom. Usually this is why I don't want to bother my mom about my "problems". Which are usually just 'That one girl wasn't interested in me', 'I hate my final thesis' or 'My back is hurting and freezing'. I don't really struggle with money, but I don't have any savings and lot of debt but unlike my brothers I don't go begging from mom and/or stepfather.

When I was told that my mom was probably depressed about this whole ordeal, which is probably just a scare from an another incompetent doctor, I wasn't able to say or promise anything. All the shit has been piling up my mom, but she has never told me anything. I'm the oldest of her sons, so I'm probably supposed to know what to do? I'd love to stab the hell out of my monitor because I don't know what to do. I've never, ever, seen my mom cry or heard that my mom has cried.

I've seen her angry to the point she popped a vein in her eye, I've seen her get so disappointed in me that she didn't couldn't show her face in few days in public. She didn't cry in front of us when she got the call her beloved mom, my grandma, had passed away. It was diabetes that got to my grandma, sugar shock during the night or something. I remember that time, she stared at the steering wheel of her car for a minute when we cried at the backseat. Then just looked up and started to make phone calls, I don't know what and to whom, but after the funeral she took my grandmas place as the foundation of this clan of ours.

With all the medical exams piling up, her doctor telling her to stay off from work for now and telling her to avoid stress, my stepfather trying to be considerate and pulling back the planned wedding of theirs so my mom doesn't need to stress about that (the wedding was a surprise for me also, I was told about it a few weeks ago. Basically it is just my mom and her long time boyfriend (27 years, of which they have lived together 26) getting married on paper, so that my mom has some legal protection if my stepfather has some kind of accident and vice versa. Basically so that my brothers can't kick mom out of her own home, since they'd inherit everything if my stepfather kicks the bucket).

If my mom just would contact me and tell me she's having some tough times right now, I'd drop everything I'm doing and go there. But she hasn't and I'd trouble her even more if I just drop by. She knows about my deadlines and my graduation is closing up as well. I'm also courting one awesome girl, but she lives far away, not likely I'll meet her anytime soon. I don't want to get her stressed because of me dropping everything. It sounds selfish, I know. But I know my mom, she'd be pissed at me for doing that after all the years I've been through in university. So this weekend I will work my ass off with my final thesis and hope I can get it done to good condition so maybe I could head to see my mom for few days next weekend.

I hope my brothers and other family members don't browse user submitted..

TL:DR; OP doesn't know how to cheer up his own mom, being such an incompetent son.

Thanks for reading, how would you cheer up your mum?

Kitty and Bulbasaur tax