19 Days…

…until C’s surgery. November 1oth. The family is in-transit in a major way. It’s unabashedly chaotic and minimalist. But it has direction.

We’ve been “camping” at Dragonfly most of this week. C and I are sleeping on a queen air bed on the floor. R is sleeping on a trundle bed in the family room. M could sleep on one of the two other beds downstairs, but instead she chooses to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of her room so as to be surrounded by the mural she and her Mom have been painting. For furnishings, we have:

• a kitchen table,
• two living room chairs,
• a family room hide-a-bed sofa,
• a fully furnished student room, and
• an air bed in the master bedroom.

We’re eating off paper plates. We have a couple towels and soap, but no shampoo!  We have yet to ferry dishwasher detergent over from the other house. Rather than an ordeal, we’re choosing to make this into an adventure.

The furniture starts moving this weekend. The required interior wall painting has been accomplished. The POD went away this morning. Replacement appliances arrived at 9am today. We have laundry services! Replacement carpet gets installed either today or tomorrow. The stove gets delivered on Saturday, separate from the movers.

Our exchange student moves in TOMORROW. We’ll start bringing clothes-and-such over as soon as tomorrow, working ahead of the movers where ever possible.

The biggest wrinkles remaining?  Getting the DLP TV, which needs repair, in for service before Sunday; breaking down the remaining unpacked items at Stark and getting them staged for the movers to put on the truck Sunday morning.

All of this with an eye on the hard-and-fast deadline of EOD Nov 9. What isn’t done by then, will proceed much more slowly afterward. Because that’s when things forcibly slow down for C’s surgery.

I’m proud of how my family is  learning to put prioritization into practice  though this process. When something comes up – some idea or issue or “need” for improvement – my family is starting to say things like “is this a need or a want? Does this require completion before surgery, or can it wait?” If not a move related requirement, it moves down the list. Everyone is increasingly comfortable with the idea that things go on the list based ont the balance of due-by and  importance, that sometimes order of completion does not always reflect overall importance or value of the issue. The historical dynamic of the family has been to use an interrupt stack (you know what I mean here -- where the newest idea moves to the FRONT of the list, only to be pushed back by the NEXT new idea). The dynamic is  morphing into a prioritized list that identifies needs, wants, nice-to-haves, and must-be-done-by dates.

Of course, there needs to be room for some want fulfillment as well. C just informed me that she’s purchased a student-grade harp. It’s smallish, and not the highest quality, but she can use it to discover if she loves playing the harp in reality as much as she’s in love with the idea of playing the harp. If not, we can resell the harp. Simple as that.

In C’s case, if having a harp puts her more at-ease going in to the surgery, then it’s a good thing. Her mental well-being is crucial. That she bought the harp tells me that she’s got her gaze firmly fixed on the distant horizon of the far-reaching future. Even with a cancer surgery looming in 19 days. This is a good thing. Back in 2006, as she was coming out of chemo and radiation, her view into the future only spanned days. A couple years later, her view had widened to span 2-5 years at most. And now? She’s planning to learn the harp during her convalescence.

I think I like this change in attitude. She’s planning for life after. With 19 days until the surgery, her eye is fixed squarely on what comes after.