The Ninety Day Rule

In my Overview section, I refer to our mantra, "We can do anything for ninety days".  It is the Pickle family spin on my mother's expression of "don't try and eat/swallow the whole elephant in one sitting."  It was her gentle reminder that when overwhelmed by a situation or a task, don't try to comprehend, grasp or otherwise process everything at once.  Take it in small bites, one day at a time.  This is pretty profound coming from a woman who has always been the big picture person, no job is too big, no mountain too high kinda gal (I will have to devote a whole posting to my mom, she is an incredible person).  But I don't remember that piece of advice so much as a child growing up, but more as we have gotten older, maybe it was her wisdom of later years that has coined that expression.  Fast forward to passing along the sage advice to our children.   George takes everything literally, it is who he is.  If you are talking about eating and elephants in the same sentence, he immediately thinks that elephant is being served for dinner.  We have been know to do experimental cooking at Casa Pickle, but even elephant would be a little outside the box for us.  So, we have come up with our mantra, "we can do anything for ninety days"...one day at the time.  We are almost at the end of our first 90 days of Pickle medical crisis du jour, so I figured you deserved a George 90 day report.

A little background.  George, well, is George.  There is a oft used expression, that "God gives you no more than you can handle"...extended to include "and he must have thought you could handle a lot".  That would be George, he handles a lot more than two people combine, but never questions, has the same pure heart and spirit that always keeps going.  George has Asperger's syndrome---he was diagnosed a long time ago, right after it became an official kind of thing, but because he was academically successful, and could handle traditional settings, we chose to keep pushing along as we always have done.  There were no guide books, help, or therapists, we figured it out on our own.     If you are unfamiliar with Asperger's, wiki it.  George likes to think of himself a combo of Sheldon Cooper (Aspie with OCD) on Big Bang, Jerry on Boston Legal (Aspie with Tourette's), Raymond in Rain Man (Savant with Monotone vocal delivery) with a side order of Pickle.  He has always laughed as said that he learned about human nature watching Survivor.  Yeah, in addition to the aspie characteristics, he is OCD, has vocal tics (Tourette), and has been know to put an audience to sleep when he gets cranked on the Little Professor network.  So, George now is juggling three bags.  God decided that he could handle a little more....like a steamer trunk.  At the age of 12, George started down a long dark hole known as Crohn's disease.  For the past 17 years he has been juggling his baggage as best as he could. Last summer it was determined that his large intestine was starting to show early signs of cancer....huh, what, Crohn's is in the small intestine.  Really, another bag (literally and figuratively)...come on, give the kid a break.  So, we walked forward to 2012, repeating the mantra, "we can do anything for 90 days".

Today, George is 72 days into that 90 days.  He is right now visiting his surgeon, looking at a reconnection date for his intestine.  His GI Doctor has asked that he wait until the end of May, after yet another colonscopy (not sure how that works with his plumbing, may not even ask), to make sure the Crohn's is still in remission (side bar:  remission=good, no repeat surgery).  George is fine with that, even telling the Doctor,  "Hey, what's another 90 days".   When faced with this challenge, we were all about the 90 day rule, but in private, Ed and I were trying to eat the elephant....Aspie, OCD, Tourette's, TMI Lectures on Ostomy Bags...oh my...He continually surprises us ---so strong, so quick to heal, and get on with life. In his own way he has been a great deal of support and comfort to me...not to mention picking up the slack on household issues.    When I am having a rough day, he gives me a hug, and looks into my eyes (two things that are really hard for Aspies), and says, "ninety days, Mom, ninety day...one day at a time".  With George as my example, I can't help but be strong.  Oh, by the way, Ed made his appointment with the Ortho surgeon for measurement for his knee (left) replacement this morning.  His ninety days will begin pretty soon....should be interesting.