Step-parenting dillemas: Update edition

A month or two back, I wrote a painfully whinging honest piece touching on one of the hardest issues in my life, how to co-parent with a difficult, abusive, and oppositional "real" parent.  Snail and Smash's mother has made my life very difficult, and the ongoing crap with her is the biggest sources of stress that DinnerDad and I have in our lives.  Ongoing, relentless stress, about which we can do nothing. You know, the best kind.

One of the main areas this sucks is in Snail's care.  The other one is money.  But that's for another post... maybe.

So, I was whinging complaining talking in this post about some appointments I'd organised for Snail and whether or not I should go to them, given the crap state of relations between me/us and their mother.  When to push and when to bow out gracefully.  What is my role, and what should I be doing, all that happy stuff.

So here's the promised update:

- the neurologist appointment was fine, as their mother didn't go.  Phew!  Less phew was the "hmmm, nothing we can do really, let's put up her meds," vibe, though both doctors were pretty good, we want a more proactive approach to making her quality of life better.  Still thinking on that, and will post more about it. 

- the chair appointment, likewise.  Their mother made a separate appointment with everyone involved.  Since then we're in a big disagreement about the brakes on the new chair, but other than that, she agreed with both chair choices.

Short aside: the brake thing is hard, she wants brakes forward on the wheels, and claims that Snail knows how to use them and needs them to be independent.  DD and I (and her therapists) have never seen Snail engage with the brakes in any way, shape, or form, and want the "attendant" brakes that are at the foot of the chair at the back.  Way easier and safer.  So, we're in a fight about it at the moment.  Putting it harshly, I think DD and I will win, purely because we are meeting all the out-of-pocket costs for the chair (you know, the pesky "extras" like transport attachments on the frame *sigh*).  And the fact that Snail doesn't even know what the brakes are on her current chair, let alone is able to use them.

- intake appointment with CP Health, I took Snail by myself as DinnerDad was away and her mother didn't go.  We got bad hip news, but that's another post. 

So, yay!?   I am soooooo looking forward to the next gazillion-ty years of doing this stupid dance.  No, really.