Riding The Wave – Multiple Myeloma

CB #19

Its daunting when you sit back and realize that in the midst of all this turmoil, I’m trying to keep many plates in the air regarding housing, moving, job resignation, the children, etc.

In our house searching in California, we learned that homes here are not sold with refrigerators! In Maryland you are required to sell a house with a fridge, but nowhere else in the country is that required. I’ve never ordered a fridge before! Its not like I wouldn’t have liked to mind you, but we just always used the fridge that came with the house and it was always fine. Nothing fancy, but adequate. At times I have looked and dreamed about what I would like to have instead, so I wasn’t completely in the dark. I new what I wanted and what I liked, but who has time in the middle of all of this to go shopping for a refrigerator. The house is in Elk Grove, I’m staying in Yuba City, I’m going back to Maryland! ARGH! Well, thank goodness for the internet and some basic researching skills. I found the one I wanted and was happy to order it from Lowes in Elk Grove. Sight unseen. The guy at Lowes was great, and answered all my questions about the one I wanted and I am satisfied and RELIEVED to have that done! Now onto the W/D, but that’s not quite as crucial as the fridge so Irma can cook up her wonderful food for Dave when she gets here.

With everything else going on, I still have these types of things that we need to handle! People will often comment on how I “do it”. I don’t really know what to say about that. Is it my character make up? Or is it just what we all do when we are living it? My mother once told me that you never know what you are truly capable of until you are faced with it head on. That thinking about something you’ve never experienced and saying “I could never do that” isn’t factual. She cited for me one of her very personal stories as a young woman. She and my father had gone to dinner at the Tack Room near Grass Valley, CA. It’s on a two lane road, on a curve in the foothills. (She said that she could never be in medicine because she couldn’t handle the site of blood.) The place was crowded and they were seated at a table nearest the door. As they sat down they heard the loud screeching of tires and crashing of metal. Without any thought they both raced out the door into the road followed by other patrons, where there was someone who had been thrown into the road (remember this was the late 60s, pre-seatbelts). The gentleman was unconscious and bleeding profusely at the neck. She reached down and “held” together his artery until the ambulance arrived. They took him from her, she stood up and promptly fainted. She said, “Don’t ever underestimate what you can do when you simply must.” I guess that is how I’ve lived. I would certainly prefer not to deal with this sort of thing, but what else can you do really? One foot in front of the other as best you can, relying on your entire life’s experience and skill set to get you through it all. Its a focus, a mind set. Both of which keeps evolving as you travel on this journey.

My Aunt June on the other hand says that I have my grandmother’s “stoic” genes! I suspect its a bit of both.

Tags: move, refrigerator