This past week my oldest son has been visiting to get his cancer scans done. This is the first visit since everything came out last July 2015 where are whole family interacted on a pretty normal basis. (He's been back 2 other times for scans.) My daughter was actually pondering over my oldest son leaving this week and feeling very sad and wanting him to stay. My poor oldest son, due to spending so much time around his siblings, has for the first time gotten to see the anxiety and depression that rules our family life. He was here when we had to speak with the pastor of the local church so now he knows how big this issue is. My daughter has had plenty of panic attacks but almost all were due to the monster boy memories and she fought so hard to not have it disrupt getting to spend time with her big brother. Together we went on 2 family bike rides, to the aquarium, to church & potluck, to the beach, to prayer meeting...we've had numerous family dinners and game nights. We had our first family get together with my husband's side of the family since all of this unfolded and all my kids had a blast playing bean bag toss, card games and joking with the family. She wanted her big brother to share our car and even told everyone where to sit (he sat either in front or back of her but she kept saying she was o.k. with him sitting next to her.)

She shared with her big brother a normal hug, her special dictaphone named "charlotte darla" that has some very special songs to help her not give up on life, she was fine with him in our home (but we made the rule he couldn't go on her room side of the house so she has that as a safe retreat, though she's never used it as such when he's around,) she even tried to to jump on him when they were being silly (which freaked him out and he pulled back into fetal position hands up to show he didn't touch her...later he said he was worried he'd get in trouble,) so, we are very happy to see the vital signs of our children doing so well.

Now, we have not seen ANY inappropriate interaction nor attempt to be so from either of them. Also, we spoke with our daughter because our oldest son kept saying that she had been a "temptress" and had instigated numerous times (and a lot of the disclosures leaned towards that)...well, it turns out that this is true, confirmed by our daughter. She also shared that she doesn't feel like her brother would ever do anything to her again but that she's not sure if she would have self control to not. I had to have the talk about just because monster boy hurt her doesn't mean that any pleasure she felt wasn't normal or her desire for more from her brother...but that those feelings needed to be reserved for her future marriage and now that she knows how strong they can be, she has to work even harder to control them. This was one area that I had been confused about because for the past 9 months she'd NEVER shared that anything felt good...she finally admitted that she did feel good sometimes. She apparently is really struggling with this fact. So now we're working through it.

One other point I wanted to share was that counseling has been so good for our situation! He's worked through his feelings during chemo, losing his friends, his addiction to pornography while stuck in the hospital, and next time they are supposed to talk about his apology letter. Our detective finally sent in the paper work so that I can get our daughter into EMDR therapy, just waiting to receive it in the mail. The boys are on the waiting list but I have my older boy scheduled for an intake and we plan on staying with his current counselor and simply sharing the results with him of the testing they do at intake.

We are waiting on the results of one last test to say my oldest is cancer-free before we book his going-"home" flight. We should hear today. This is going to be a difficult goodbye for everyone because they all enjoyed each other so much. There will be lots of tears and tantrums and I'm sure a week of damage control. Now that the interaction part is fixed, we just need to get both kids finished with counseling in regards to each other, complete our home set-up and then he can move back home.

This monster child will not destroy our family any longer...neither inside nor out! I just wanted to share the positive moves in the right direction. :)