Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

I have a friend who is waiting to find out if her husband is included in the company layoffs.
Another friend is waiting on test results to tell her why her right eye and right arm are weakened, droopy, and lagging behind.
A woman I know is waiting for the oncologist to tell her how long her mother has to live.
I’m waiting for test results too, this time my own (already got the results of Jackson’s).

All this got me thinking: why are we waiting?

Since my brother’s death in 1996, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time waiting for the other shoe to drop in my life. And if you know anything about me, you know I’ve had a lot of “shoes” drop in the last 12 years.

My mom was diagnosed with Lupus in 1993. Coincidentally, my dad was diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease later that year. (MCTD is extremely similar to Lupus.) Then Dad was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma in 1996. My brother died of Rhabdomysarcoma in 1996 when he was 26 years old, just 14 months after diagnosis.

Mom’s health declined for years and she was hospitalized in July 2004 for two strokes, a diseased gallbladder, C-Diff (an incredibly unlovely bacterial infection), and a number of other complications. She died after spending six weeks in the hospital, with my sister and I by her bedside for almost the entire time. (Katie was only one at the time, and Mary’s girls were six and ten.) Mom’s body was in such bad shape after being ravaged by Lupus. It didn’t help that for 11 years after her diagnosis, she didn’t follow doctors’ orders very well in treating the Lupus. When mom was moved to hospice, her doctor told us he was so sure that she also had either breast cancer or ovarian cancer. He asked us to add it to our family health histories and begin getting ourselves screened for the cancers. Mom died on September 7, 2004. It was Dan’s birthday.

Dad’s cancer had been weakening him slowly for years. Honestly, we thought he would die before Mom did. (Side note: my parents separated in 1993 and were divorced in 1995.) He died about six months later, on February 24, 2005.

I’m giving you all these details to explain why I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. My family health history is poor, to say the least. I’ve lost three family members to cancer, and two of them had the added complication of major autoimmune disorders. In addition, my youngest niece has Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, another autoimmune disorder. Knowing my DNA is so flawed makes me feel like I have a shotgun aimed at me. The question is when the trigger will be pulled.

Most days, I don’t think about it too much. I guess it’s kind of a flippant response. I figure something’s going to kill me one day. Just like everyone else. And then other days, I’m stopped in my tracks by the thought that something’s going to kill me one day.

I was stopped in my tracks earlier this year, when I got blood test results saying I have all the positive markers for MCTD. My Rheumatologist said there’s nothing I can do to reverse the possibility. The good news is I may never develop symptoms, or it may be years before I do.

Then I was stopped in my tracks again yesterday. I had my yearly Ob/Gyn checkup. We discussed all kinds of diagnostic tests that will hopefully screen for cancer. I already had a baseline mammogram four years ago, and I now I will start getting them yearly. For ovarian cancer screenings, I have a CA-125 blood test done every year and a pelvic ultrasound to check the growth of my ovaries.

Discussing these issues with my Ob/Gyn made me stop and think how much it sucks to have that shotgun aimed at me. Most days I can ignore the shotgun in the woods, but yesterday I felt like a deer standing in the middle of a forest clearing – with nothing between me and the shotgun.

I expect the blood tests I had done yesterday will turn out fine. But it was another reminder there’s still a shoe hanging up there, waiting to drop. It didn’t help that as I was leaving the hospital, I saw a woman driving a minivan just like mine with a chemo turban on her head. My heart stopped beating for a moment when I thought about what I would do if that were me. Dear God.

As I’ve been thinking about this, the question that comes to me is: what are you waiting for?

Why wait? Do it now. You’ve heard it all before, haven’t you? The advice to use your china and crystal for every day meals, instead of waiting for the big events. Or the advice to wear that pretty lingerie today, instead of waiting for a special night.

Here’s one I’ll add, that I’m telling to myself: stop waiting for "some day." Stop waiting for the kids to get older or go to school or go to Grandma’s. Stop waiting for more money. Do it now. Now is all you have. The phone could ring, the car could crash, a crazy dude could shoot you as you try to help him put out his fire. Nothing is guaranteed. Haven’t you learned this by now, Elizabeth?

Go hug them, and hold on tight. Tell them the words you want them to remember. Invest the time and the energy. Live your life in such a manner that when the other shoe falls, you'll have no regrets. Stop waiting. Go out and live!