Straws, Camels, And Setbacks

Folks, we’re several weeks into the reconstruction phase. It’s been a mixed bag so far, full of antibiotics and adorable (although sleep-challenged) babies, disappointing news and date nights out, sick toddlers and sunny autumn days. So it’s been a lot more like normal life. Except we’re still camping out at my parents’ house.

Come to think of it, I arrived here around this time last year when I was pregnant with Alex. So I’ve now been here for one full year except for the 10 weeks we spent in Vientiane in between birth and cancer. So, actually, this sort of is normal life for me now, and it’s my favorite time of year here. The weather is sunny but cool, the air still, and the ocean waters crystalline.

The incandescent weather is some small consolation for the fact that we’ll be imposing on my parent’s hospitality for a bit longer than expected.

Remember Mike’s cosmically unfair encounter with the screen door back in January on his second day of chemo? The one that landed him in the emergency room for stitches in his right foot? Well, that wound isn’t healed yet. It seems that his beleaguered white blood cells (let’s call them government troops) have had other priorities in the intervening months. They haven’t been able to do any more than (mostly) contain the band of staph terrorists that set up camp in that deep wound down in the outer colonies. After all, you sometimes need to sacrifice a colony or two when you’re fighting to keep the heart of the nation intact. Mike’s just come off his last (eighth?) course of antibiotics so we’re really hoping that the terrorists don’t mount yet another comeback, because the government troops are exhausting their options when it comes to weaponry.

We’ve been strongly advised not to head back to the tropics (particularly since Laos is heading into the hot/rainy season) with an open wound, so we’ve decided to delay a few weeks to give Mike’s foot a little more time to heal and stabilize. Our expected return to Laos date is now May 25^th, just in time to start dismantling the house that we (Mike in particular) had assembled so carefully and that we have lived in together for a grand total of 10 weeks and find a new place to live.

That’s right. We have to move before the end of July. When we got the email from our landlords a couple of weeks ago informing us that they wanted us to move out so that they could move into the house, I just wanted to lie down and quit. Life, that is. For me, the news that we had to move was the straw massive log that felled my camel. And, to be honest, I still can’t think about it for too long without feeling depressed/resentful etc, so let’s just stop talking about it.

Quick! Here are some pictures of impossibly adorable children, instead.

So that’s where we’re at. We knew that the name of the game during this reconstruction phase was expecting the unexpected, but I’ve come to realize that you cannot, really, expect the unexpected. Not really. You can try to keep in mind the general principle that unexpected setbacks might crop up, but nothing can really prepare you not to feel flattened when you, for example, get an email saying that your landlords want their house back and you’ll have to move during the hottest months of the year, right after returning to Vientiane with a recovering husband and two little kids.

The best that trying to expect the unexpected can do is help you bounce back a little faster after you’ve been laid low. The worst that trying to expect the unexpected can do is have you wandering through your days conjuring up all sorts of unlikely possibilities.

Today might be the day when I get struck by lightening. Or possibly gored by a rogue bull. Or, conversely, Today I’m bound to win the lottery.

Either extreme dead-ends in depression, fear, or perpetual disappointment.

So I’ve decided to stop trying to expect the unexpected. Or, at least, conjuring up specific unexpecteds that might come to pass. Instead, I’m going to stick a flag in the sand and claim what I expect.

I expect Mike’s foot to hold steady, and to heal. I expect his first test results post-cancer to come back clear. I expect that we’re going to return to Laos in late May. I expect us to find a new house that suits our needs with minimal fuss (big, thankful shout out to Mike’s colleague, Sharon, who’s already working on this for us). And while we’re at it, I expect to find the heat in Vientiane tolerable when that plane finally touches down (might as well shoot for optimism in my expectations). 

And if the “expectations minus reality” equation turns out not to stack up to my liking, I’ll just have to deal with it then.