Divorce and Doctors

     C's parents were extremely good with the boys, at least while Papa B was alive.  He was a former police officer and was at least a little moral and good with teaching values to the younger generations.   Nana B, at the time, seemed like she was good with the kids.  Seemed like she was a little slow, but that was it.  We did, however. notice that the grandmother was covered in visual deformities on her skin - not that it mattered, but when you took into account something we noticed on Kevin's older brother; we got worried.     

    When Kevin's older brother A was born, he had a long ridge on his head.  My mother got worried and immediately asked the doctors about it.  They informed her it was scar tissue, on the head of a newborn.  As A aged, the ridge grew along the growth plate of his head.  My mother took one of the kids to a doctor's appointment, and that doctor turned and looked at A and said to my mother, "You need to have the child checked for neurofibromatosis."

    We later found out that A had Neurofibromatosis type 1, which had been passed down to him from his birth mother, which (in turn) had gotten it from her mother Nana B.  The visual deformities we had always seen on her skin and never knew what they were, were tumors.  A had the disease and Kevin could quite possibly have it.  If he didn't have it, he could be a carrier.  At the time all we knew for sure is that they both had a 50% chance of passing it down to any child they had.  Nana B and C both knew this at the point that they both got pregnant, and they both knowingly got pregnant without educating their spouses on the risks of this disease and what could go horribly wrong.  I will always find that to be the most horrible thing to do to a person, but I wouldn't trade either of my nephews for anything in the world.  

    You would think that at this point the parents would show some interest or concern for their children.  You would be wrong.  C kept showing up at the nursing home, both children strapped in their car seats.  We would go over to check on them, and T would be at work at the car shop, or I believe scrapping.  He was always gone. 

    C and T would have my mother take A to every doctor appointment, whether it be in Columbia, Lebanon, or Lake of the Ozarks. It didn't matter where it was or how she was feeling, my mother was going to have to take him, or he wasn't going.  She was going to have to take both boys as well.  That was no problem with her though, because she has always said that those were her boys.   She also usually bought their medication too.  If the boys were sick, guess who took care of them? My mother.

    As their disastrous marriage went along, my mother, father and I started noticing the shape of the house was going downhill.  C's housekeeping was atrocious.  The house was always filthy.  The kids were always in filthy, disgusting clothes.  I have copies of professional baby pictures of Kevin where his clothes are absolutely squalid.  Their diapers were always so full they were drooping down to their ankles.  The bottles were either moldy, soured, or just any other kind of disgusting thing you can think of that you wouldn't want to feed to a child - or your worst enemy.  We even found a lock, on the outside of the kids' bedroom door...at the top.

    One day I went over to their house with my mom and we went into the kids bedroom and found their bedroom window glass broken in half.  The parents were totally ok with this.  Also, A informed us one day, "Bubby stuck a fork into the hole in the wall.  I saw fire and he flew across the room."  He had stuck a fork into the uncovered wall outlet.  None of the ones in the children's room were covered by outlet covers.  It was normal for us to show up and find both boys strapped to car seats in the middle of the floor in the living room watching tv, because the parents didn't want to watch them.  

    I don't recall when my mother told me about this, but she had showed up one day to see Papa B trying to run toward the interstate highway (which was on the other side of the ravine by the kids house) because the boys had ran aways from the house and were running towards the highway.  He was disabled, so he couldn't catch them.  The mother was not disabled, but I don't think she even realized her children weren't even in the house any longer - or really didn't care.  At some point, enough had become enough, and a family member tried to hotline the parents.  DFS informed C that they were doing a home check and told her when they would be there.  She had the house cleaned up by the time they got there.  

    Eventually, T and C decided their differences were too much and they split up.  T found himself a new girlfriend, and C found a new place to live.  She came to live with us and also brought the boys.