clean – beatingcowdens

“…You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting…” – Dr. Seuss

I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE THE WAITING PLACE!

There is more to the book. Lots more, but this is the part that keeps running through my mind, right now, at 1 AM, as I sit buried under a pile of papers. There is some combination of house bills, medical bills, medical errors that need to be corrected, and “this just has to wait because I can’t deal with it right now.”

I successfully organized a lot, and have a bag of shredding to prove it. This makes me happy. I like order. I strive on structure. I can sometimes be a little difficult to live with because in my house every toy, every item, has a “home.” Nothing is left laying around. I will confess to being a bit compulsive.

Why? People ask all the time. Why, with all you have been through, why after the breast cancer, the hysterectomy, Meghan’s surgeries, WHY does it matter if your floor is mopped and your counter is clean? All the time I hear – LET IT GO!

Well, the truth is – I can’t.

I need control. I need to control what I can control, which these past few months hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot. So, if having control over my clean floor and my clutter free desk makes me happy, people are going to have to go with that.

I have mentioned several times that my Mom always says, “You plan, God laughs.” Well we have joked that He has had a few good chuckles this year. While I feel INCREDIBLY blessed for the countless things that have gone well, sometimes the fact that Cowden’s Syndrome invaded our house and stripped me of the ability to plan, schedule, control, and order just about anything really gets under my skin.

After Meghan’s AVM surgery in February, we were told she was likely to need additional surgery in a few months. I did not sign her up for camp, WAITING. We had the MRI last Thursday. She spent 2 hours in the tube WAITING for them to take 5,000 images. I will call again tomorrow, but I will likely spend the week WAITING for the report, and the decision as the whether the next surgery is to happen now or later.

I signed her up for dance once a week, and swimming once a week, but we are WAITING on the MRI results to know if she will complete either of those classes.

Then, with the lack of a structured day she spends her time WAITING and hoping someone will come and swim with her. (That is when we are not WAITING at doctor’s appointments!) Her mother is WAITING for the lingering bleeding from the hysterectomy 7 weeks ago to stop before I head back into the pool.

I feel like these last few months have been full of WAITING. WAITING for surgery, WAITING to go home, WAITING for pathology, WAITING …

I have no control over any of this. I do believe GOD is in charge, and I am so comforted by that belief. It is my human frailty that keeps me searching for ownership and control where it is not mine to have.

I will WAIT. And I will do it as patiently as I can. Cowden’s Syndrome will be full of WAITING – forever it seems.

But, I will wait with a clean, organized house. I can not control this PTEN mutation, or the Cowden’s Syndrome that resulted, but I CAN certainly control the clean counters, and the dog fur… well, most of the time!

Towards the end of his book Dr. Seuss reminds me, and all of us…

“And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)