Past week or two, I've been having the occasional call with my uncle. Before then, the last I'd heard about him was that he was spiraling hard into opiate abuse; according to my brother, the last time he saw him in person, he looked like a skeleton with skin draped over it.
Come to find out, he OD'd a week or two before Christmas and died at one point before being resuscitated. He also found out at the same time (because they ran a standard battery of blood tests and such when he was admitted) that he had prostate cancer. From what he told me, it kinda caused him to rethink a lot of his life. Like how he'd pushed away my family when he put a stop to an attempt by my mom and dad to try to get him to admit he needed help by telling my grandmother, who proceeded to kick out my parents from her house and told them to never come back. According to him, he's come to regret that decision immensely, especially now that he...can't really apologize to my dad, anymore. He's also apparently managed to kick his addiction during his treatment and is doing his damndest to stay clean of everything, even going so far as to quit smoking.
I'm...skeptical, because this has happened before, but I am hopeful. He might not be able to reconnect fully with my family, but I'd like to think I've kinda laid the groundwork for him to at least apologize for what he did.
In more positive news, this past weekend, he received the results of his most recent tests and he tested negative for cancer, which is extremely good. They're still going to give him treatment (he chose chemo so he didn't have to spend several hours at a time getting directed radiation in unpleasant places) to make sure its fully gone, but as it stands, he seems to have survived his ordeal and come out better for it. I'll, again, remain skeptical, but supportive. I do want him to be able to actually kick his addictions once and for all because I know he's not a bad person, inside. He's just had a lot of daemons he had to deal with and been down a cycle of addiction to numerous substances that started wayyy back when he was a teenager and his dad got him a bottle of Jim Beam for his 16th birthday.
I want him to get better, and if I can help him do it, I sure as hell will.
(Bonus points: he told me he thinks Trump is, quote, "a fucking dumbass," so at least I know his head's screwed on halfway right!)