[RKDinOKC]

Okay, here is my story.

After college I moved in with my parent because my father was ill and mom needed help taking care of him. The day dad died my next older brother had his first big MS, multiple Sclerosis attack. Stayed in my parents house because mom spent most of the time at my brother's helping them. When my brother got to the point he was wheel chair bound his wife divorced him. He and mom moved back home so we could take care of him. Mom and Dad had been helping make MS brothers house payment. Found his wife had been secretly socking money away and telling my parents they were having trouble. She had $80,000 socked away.

Sold the parents house and used some of the money from the sale to make a 20% down payment on a much larger home that is wheel chair accessible. This still left mom with a pretty good bank roll. Other older brother got pissed off because I didn't have him come look at the house before making the offer and purchasing the house, and because he wanted me to buy his friends house that had 8 steps to get in and out?!? I had been looking for a accessible house for 2 months so when I found one, I bought it. Since he was pissed he didn't help take care of MS brother and barely visited.

MS brother ran into old HS girlfriend and she basically moved in and helped tremendously taking care of him.

Mom got breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy. Other brother took her home from hospital with idea that she would move in with him permanently. However did not do operation followup, i.e.. physical therapy and she basically lost most of the use of her right arm because of it. He and his wife left her home alone most of the time so she asked him to move her back to my house.

Other brother did not want her to be involved with taking care of MS brother (even though girlfriend is doing EVERYTHING) so he asked them to move out of my house. He did offer to buy them s house and make it accessible. Girlfriend was afraid that when MS brother died (His progressive MS was terminal) she would be left out in the cold. MS brother and girlfriend moved to her trailer. Other brother gave them $5000 to make the trailer more accessible. The trailer was in such bad shape it wasn't worth $5000 even after the accessibility mods.

Mom had a stroke and I became her primary care giver. I work at the "family" business. My other brother's father-in-law founded the company, other brother is Chairman of the Board and his sons are president and CEO. I was head of engineering, art director, and internet admin, webmaster and email admin. For 3 months helping mom recover from the stroke I managed everything from home. The day I started going back into the office I was demoted without pay cut. Kept all the internet responsibilities and now reported to IT manager which I had been on the same level as engineering/art director.

MS brother and girlfriend were living off MS brothers disability (not much) and until they got married she was getting paid as a caregiver. She couldn't work and take care of him. After MS brother passed away other brother bought the house across the street from MS brother's wife's sister, fixed it up, and is selling it to her for a very very low payment. She is now on social security. He is also fixing things on the house as if she were renting.

Working under the IT director I have had my responsibilities taken way until now I only manage the Mac Servers, Email (exchange), and DNS. The IT department was sorely in need of office space so I was offered to opportuning to work from home. It was the IT Director's idea so he could get my office space, and he thought I could better take care of my mom whom is now having post stroke dementia (it's like althemerz but doesn't respond to the meds). Have been working from home and taking care of mom for almost 2 years now.

Right before mom's cancer surgery my other brother had a living will made up for mom. He is in charge of her finances and I am in charge of her medical stuff. When we did this she only had $5000 left in her bank account (she spent a LOT helping MS brother). At that same time changed her insurance and even with the increased cost of living she is up to over $20,000 now from the decreased medical cost.

My other brother bought a house in the gated community behind my house. It's across the street directly behind my house. His father-in-law, and father-in-law's girlfriend both bought the two houses directly behind my house and we installed a gate in the fence. Brother's father-in-law passed away and his house is being rented to the family whose house my brother wanted me to buy. Sister-in-law spends more time with her father's girlfriend than mom. It took two years to get them to help me set up mom with a good hair dresser (being a long time Flowbee user, I know nothing about barbers hair dressers or women's hair.)

A year ago last summer my sister, whom lives in Rolla Mo. came for one of her bi-annual visits. At the time of her visit Mom was very low on iron and wasn't able to do much. My sister took mom's car away and after finding my brother and his three kids all have maid made a big deal about me working from home and taking care of mom, I now have a maid that my brother pays for (not sure if it is from mom's money or not). The bad thing is that this made mom feel like she couldn't do anything and her dementia got a LOT worse.

This past Saturday my brother came over (with all his own cleaning stuff) and cleaned the baseboards in my kitchen. I made a comment that the floors and cabinets were in pretty bad shape and that I wanted to replace them all with something newer, but hadn't found anything I liked yet. He told me it would only cost me about $5000 and he could help me doing it myself.

Now for the interesting part, my other brother came over last night to give me a check for some medications I had bought for mom. He asked how much my house payment was, then offered to give me 6 months house payments. When I asked why he said, he knew I had a lot of extra expenses last year, and mom had the money. Not sure what to think about it.