It’s been a while since I wrote anything since life has just been so very busy and I am so very tired. My daughter’s surgery was scheduled and took place several weeks ago and the procedure is such that she cannot drive, use her arm or really her whole left side for seven weeks. We are at week five and I have been staying with her to pick up the slack and do the things she cannot. Our standing joke is that I have legs that aren’t working (the cancer drug is playing hell with my joints and muscles) and she has arms that don’t work so we just try to cope. I stay with her and her two children from Monday to Friday and come home on weekends when the kids are with their dad. This long weekend I called to ask her if she missed me. She said she missed me lots but she missed her car a lot too. I brought it home with me so she wouldn’t be tempted.
Her children are ten and twelve so it is certainly easier than if they were still babies and needed to be held and carried. Having said that, they are at the age where just being in the same room is enough to start an argument and trade insults. You know, I thought that I had forgotten all that but it comes back like a giant wave, the days of raising young kids. My mother used to say that God gives you children when you’re young enough to handle them and I believe that she was right. Things that would roll right off are much more difficult to tolerate at my age. Add to that the fact that I need to keep in mind that they are not my kids and their mother is right there so I need to mind my own business. That’s never been my strong suit, but I’m trying.
I had it in my head that while I was there I would do all the housework that she has not been able to do for so long because of her injury. This was truly a case of “the spirit is willing but the body is weak”. I have done the things that I am able but it is hard to keep up when there is a lot of pain and I don’t have the strength I usually do. Together we manage the day-to-day tasks and we have established a routine that seems to be working for us. I had forgotten the amount of laundry that a family accumulates – oh my goodness! The kids are great at carrying the laundry up and down the stairs and that is helpful, but it is neverending.
Our schedule is now pretty well set. We all get up at 6:30 to make sure that there is time for the kids to get ready for school, breakfast is taken care of, lunches are made, backpacks are checked to be sure all forms are signed and homework is included and everyone is off to school for 8:20 and 8:45 respectively. We take the kids to school, come home and have breakfast and both have a short nap. There was a day when I would be all judgy-judgy about the nap part, but you do what you have to do to get by. She needs a nap because the recovery from her specific surgery is long and painful and I need one to get through. We then make decisions about dinner, take care of laundry and the day’s single cleaning task. Setting one task each day helps a great deal because I feel like I am accomplishing something without doing so much that I fall over. By then it’s time for the kids to be home. Outside play, dinner, homework, family time outside, showers and bed for the kids. I have my whole life been a person who stays up too late, I have always been a night owl but I must say that I am in bed before 11 pm these days. Turns out you can teach this old dog some new tricks, even if it is just out of necessity.
So I spent some time thinking about how this will affect our relationship, that is my daughter and I. We are both well aware that we are pretty rigid in how we do things and for sure, it’s not always the same way. I think we have both learned to give a little and save our battles for the ones that matter to us. We have had our moments for sure, but we both are learning to let it go to keep the peace. I have to say that she has done this better than I have and I work hard to remember that this medication plays hell with my moods and one wrong look can bring me to tears so she carries most of the weight in being understanding. Having said all that, I don’t want to make it sound like it’s been difficult living together, sharing a bed, because it hasn’t! we get along really well. At least once a day, we have a laughing fit that neither one of us can stop and it doesn’t take much. We are so fortunate that we not only love each other as mother and daughter, we like each other a lot. I’m not going to say we’re best friends because I have always believed there is a difference between your girl friendships and the parent-child relationship. But we are so blessed that we have fun together and are still managing to get through a difficult time.
Now they have scheduled my surgery – it’s going to be in ten days so we’re planning how she will cope day to day when I’m recovering. It turns out I will be having a lumpectomy when for so many months we have been afraid of a mastectomy. I’m also scheduled for radiation, not the chemotherapy originally planned. Even though, the medication has been very difficult to tolerate, it did its job and for that I’m very grateful.
So on this Thanksgiving day, I realize that I have much to be thankful for and I have spent some time counting my blessings. I have a loving, supportive husband who is coping with this time beautifully, my daughter is healing, my sons call regularly as they are so far away but check on me and remind me they love me, stepchildren who care and regularly send their love and support, eight grandchildren who bring me great joy and friends who care and let me know that they do. Oh, and great doctors who are making sure I will still be around to enjoy and be with all those who are so important to me. And when it comes right down to it, is there anymore than that?
