Medical costs for step daughter's son

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I’ve NC for this.

DH has a daughter (let’s call her Jane), they’ve never had a brilliant relationship, she treats him like dirt to be honest, but he always goes along with it, just to maintain contact.

Jane and her husband have a son (let’s call him Sam). He is pre-school age, he’s seen specialists and its become clear he has medical problems. There’s no cure, various therapies are available, none of them proven, and of course steps can always be taken to improve day-to-day life (and that’s as specific as I’m prepared to be, in case the Daily Mail gets hold of this).

Jane has understandably been researching all this, and is interested in taking Sam abroad, to seek other opinions/treatments. You can imagine the cost. DH is keen to help as much as possible. And here is the issue: DH and I are approaching retirement. We have saved hard for this, and have plans. We have comparable jobs and have both contributed fairly equally to our joint finances and savings. So how much of this, if any, should we be sacrificing? I know a child with health issues is a very emotive subject, but I’ve worked hard all my life and I’m not sure if I want to donate chunks of my retirement fund to a fairly unpleasant woman (or even delay one or both of our retirements) when she also has a mother (who never contributes towards anything) and of course her husband (Sam’s father) also has parents.

I expect to be criticised for posting this. But if anyone can be constructive, please reply.

I would not agree to spending money on unnecessary and likely unhelpful medical procedures abroad. I think they're likely just wasting money.

I might agree to providing some money towards making their lives a bit easier, any equipment they needed here.

It would be fairly limited though as most of it would be provided for them in the UK.

What are your current plans for your retirement fund? There's a difference between spending on a luxury round the world trip, compared to spending on double glazing or house alterations to make your retirement easier / cheaper. Is your retirment fund sufficient for you to live in luxury, or is it only sufficient to keep paying the bills?

Has Jane actually asked for money? and how much?
How much is your dh thinking of giving, and how much would it affect his / your retirement. If he's thinking of giving £20K and it means you have a few less holidays that's one thing. If he planning on decimating his entire fund then he needs to think about how he is going to pay the bills.

Many people have already given their view. Mine is - follow the Specialist's advice. If needs be get another NHS Specialist's advice - I believe that is a right now, it's called Martha's Rule?

Until a proven treatment plan that works is forthcoming keep your money for you.

And what attitude is that? Worrying about your own financial stability in retirement is sensible to me.

I wouldn’t sacrifice my retirement for anyone. Let the kid’s parents pick up second jobs, take out a bank loan or use credit cards.

The problem with this type of quackery is that the quacks sell themselves as being able to fix things that will take more and more money . The first attempt won’t work, you’ll need subsequent attempts, it becomes a long term payment plan. Regardless of the relationship and dynamics I’d be concentrating on the lack of proper evidence that this is will make a substantial sustainable long term term difference.

If the treatment isn’t funded by the NHS it is unproven , or of limited benefit, or potentially harmful or horrendously expensive

I wouldn’t want to pay for any of that myself although I can understand why parents would be that desperate

and expecting you to make major sacrifices where the value is unproven seems to be beyond the pale

although his poor relationship will get even worse and that might make your DH miserable

sounds like alternative medicine to me. Not medical costs. I’m not convinced.

How much are they asking you for? There's a big difference between £10k and £250k.

Also you are allowed to say "my step DIL, who I don't like". No need to beat around the bush.

I would never recommend only looking at treatments that either the NHS or a specific doctor recommend. What the NHS recommends is usually based on a series of economic and budgetary constraints. Doctors themselves can be very very closed minded to advances. Far from Drs being at the Vanguard of change, more often than not they’re highly resistive.

Two simple examples:

1. handwashing - handwashing is one of the best ways of preventing infection travelling around hospitals. Yet it took the best part of 150 years for it to be adopted as a process, and Semelweis who discovered the benefits of handwashing was effectively hounded out of his profession for being a quack. Today? Still doctors don’t uniformly hand wash. Rates are about 40% of doctors wash their hands between patients. This rises to 80% during pandemics
2. treatment of sepsis- here in the UK if you get sepsis, you will probably be put on a high dose antibiotic. You may very well die. What you will not get is high dose intravenous vitamin C. The Riordan clinic in the US has been very successfully treating sepsis for the past 40-50 years using a high intravenous vitamin C protocol. They were retreated as quacks but now slowly this approach is now spreading in the US. I don’t think anyone in the UK even talks about this.

The list goes on.

I don’t think you can assume doctors here have got it right. And when you are a mother, and however nasty you are to your stepmother, you will do anything to fight for the life of your child, or their well-being. As a grandfather, you will definitely do everything you can.

Equally though, unless you are wealthy, you can’t afford to go down every avenue possible and may have to accept the limits your finances place on the exploration

As others have said, I think you and your husband need to have a very honest conversation about the cap on your help to his daughter. Without knowing what the disorder is and quite how experimental treatments are it could be a very futile, costly journey.

But for God sake, your argument cannot under any circumstances be about withholding help just because she’s unpleasant!!!

oh sad one. If it was me I'd try HARD to set aside the behaviour of the step daughter for the sake of the child BUT I'd be expressing my view that treatments should be researched before committing to pay for them. Yes there are valid treatments available abroad that the NHS won't/can't fund but there is also a shedload of unresearched quackery out there and parents are often, for very good reasons, not the best people to sieve the wheat from the chaff. I'd also have a difficult but needful discussion with DH about what is affordable short term and what is not and the same for long term. i think also that you need to make some decisions about what it is that you want.....would you end your marriage if it came to it?

When the nhs can't help it leaves the parents desperate to do something but unless there was some concrete evidence the therapy worked I wouldn't pay for it Op. Better to see if there's more you could do to help as the DC grows up like specialist equipment or adaptions to their home.
Your DH will let his guilt get the better of him so I'd move your share of savings to another account

Very difficult to say before they have actually seen a specialist overseas and have been quoted a fee for any treatment that is recommended.

It's a very personal decision; in your husbands position I would give everything that I could and delay my retirement if needs be. I wouldn't expect the same of my spouse, though, especially if there is no relationship there.

This is very difficult, OP. I feel for you.

Is the boy in pain? How much can treatment contribute to his quality of life? He is the grandson of your DH, and independently of your SD that is a powerful bond.

In your place I would not sacrifice ‘too much’, I think, unless pain were an issue. I would try to ringfence my contributions to our shared finances. But if DH wanted to work more years to fund this, I would support that decision. I wouldn’t mind effectively subsidising DH if it came to that.

But I would want him to evaluate the treatment, and get some other respected opinions. Not just the NHS, which does use a stringent cost benefit analysis. What do respected American, French and German specialists think?

It is very sad, but sometimes parents do grasp at straws. No need to encourage that at the cost of your retirement plans.

Best wishes

I can understand Jane’s desire to try anything, but what happens when she goes through all the cash your DH hands her? He’s still going to be sick and Jane’s not going to love your DH more or be a nicer person, is she?

If it was too expensive for the NHS it would still be recognised as a legitimate treatment and probably available in the UK at a cost. If it is not recognised at all then I think it sounds dubious.

Just because the NHS doesn’t recognise the treatment doesn’t mean it’s not worthy. The nhs is massively underfunded and there’s lots of treatments they don’t offer due to cost.,

how much is she asking for? Does she have the money herself? If it was my own dc and I felt the treatment was likely to benefit my child greatly I would firstly sell what I could, even my house.

if it was my dgc and my dc didn’t have the money I would do as above.

it’s not your gc but they are your husbands. He needs to be the driver in this imo.

The problem here is that whatever DH decided to give out of “his” portion of funds would also take away from OP’s funds and plans, as she would have to subsidise his loss from her own side.

what happens when they identify treatment and she can’t pay for it, it is likely to be hundreds a month.

If it's the USA (and it usually is, because their business model of medicine will promise the world on the flimsiest of evidence - and charge the earth for it) then it won't be hundreds a month; it will be thousands, or quite possibly tens of thousands. Plus the costs of staying over there for treatment.

As for 'there's lots of effective stuff the NHS doesn't offer'. Well, there is lots of stuff the NHS doesn't offer. And some of it is effective. But there's going to be very little that's effective but that an NHS specialist in the condition (most of whom also do private work) hasn't heard of.

I'd suggest not offering a blank check for speculative searches for 'something that might help'. But consider a set amount if the parents come to you with a specific, evidenced option that a specialist here (so who isn't the one who'll be paid for it) agrees could make a useful amount of difference.

I think it boils down to the following questions…

1. Is it a proven treatment, but not funded by the NHS ie available in France, Germany, Canada etc
2. what are the parents doing to help fund it? Does Jane work?
3. Are all grandparents expected to contribute according to their means?
4. Will the treatment solve/lessen the problem permanently or will it be a temporary relief. Would the child be better off learning coping mechanisms.

if the answers are positive, I would seriously consider it. 1,2&4 are needed. 3 would be wanted.

Yes there are experimental treatments that go on to be the gold standard. But for every good experimental or unregulated treatment there are 10,000 that are quackery. How do you filter to find the good ones. They ALL put of facts and figures supporting their claims. It is very easy to manipulate data. Theranos was a scam blood testing lab that successfully sucked in billions from very smart credible investors. It was a sham and the founder went to jail I believe.

here's a recent meta analysis on the high dose vit C treatment. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9889164/

This is why you never join money.

He can obviously spend his money on the health of his children, you have ZERO say in that. Frankly I would do ANYTHING to help/save my grandchildren regardless of any type of relationship with their parents (they are different people).

You also don't have to spend any of YOUR money on this woman or her children.

Calling her unpleasant is very misguided though. It's very unlikely you partner was always an amazing selfless martyr of a father to her and to believe that would be naive because no one is (all parents fuck up at point but part time fathers tend to more due to being absentee).

People need to remember (extreme to make the point) that even Hitler had people who loved him and who he loved and doted on and never did anything wrong too. Your experience of a person is NOT the same as someone else's experience of them and just because they are super nice and the sun shines out their arse for you doesn't mean they haven't been cruel and aren't the devil to someone else.

@redwhitegreen How much money is she looking at in total for this?

We had all manner of demands/requests for treatments that DSD mother insisted on, and trips and whatnot, in the end the only way to manage it was to say 'We'll match whatever your DM pays'

So try that. Otherwise DH works out what he can afford and fix it at that amount so that he puts in some money, but it doesn't trash your retirement plans. He will feel better at contributing, and he has stepped up

Unfortunately there is no right answer. I can understand your stepdaughter wanting to move heaven and earth to get treatment for her child, and your husband's desire to help, just as I understand your wish to preserve your savings for your retirement.