The Clean House

The Clean House.  Everyone has their idea of what that is.  I had thought I knew the definite description.  But, within the last couple of weeks, I have learned there are many things that can be described by those three little words and they each have very different meanings.

The Clean House.  I try to keep one of those.  I find myself picking stuff up, dusting and vacuuming all the time.  I straighten the pillows on the couches, wash the dishes, and fold the laundry.  I mop, wipe, flush, polish and scrub.  I was certain that I knew the meaning of The Clean House.

Then along comes my young friend, Ryan Rushing.  He invites me to a play he has co-directed.  The title was The Clean House.  My first thought was, OMG, this will be the most boring thing in the world.  Why on earth would he pick a play that demonstrates cleaning a house?  I have to expose this young man to the world.  A play about cleaning a house?  Really?  Well, I will be there to support him.  But, The Clean House?

Well, my friend showed me a very different view of the term, The Clean House. The Clean House was a play that premiered in 2004, written by Sarah Ruhl.  It is a comedy centered around a Brazilian cleaning woman, Matilde, who would much rather be a comedian, but thinks her parents died from laughing and is so afraid she will come up with the perfect joke that will either kill her or the one she tells it too.  Although cleaning was the main action taking place in the play, I got so much more out of it.  The husband of the house who had hired the cleaning lady had fallen in love with someone else.  A terminal patient he had recently operated on.  The characters showed the pain that was involved with what was going on in their lives, but instead of it being centered on the cheating husband, for some reason, I saw it as the pain that is associated for all those surrounding the terminal patient.  It showed the husband doing everything he could, including heading off toAlaskato find a very rare yew tree that could possibly cure the patient.  It showed Matilde dividing her time between the two households.  There was a sister in the play that felt that cleaning was her life’s ambition, and was constantly picking up the pieces from everyone’s mess. It showed the scorned wife, also a doctor, being there for her husband’s lover to comfort her and take care of her in her final moments.  And it showed the cleaning lady that thinks laughing is the answer to everything.

It ends with everyone around the dying woman.  She asks Matlide to tell her a joke that will let her die, and she does.  It shows the closeness of those involved in making the journey to our eventual end, as serene and peaceful as possible.  Am I weird?  Am I the only one that took that away from that play?  Maybe, but maybe, being a terminal patient gives you a different view of things.  Maybe I felt it represented people in my life.  Those who are there every minute taking care of me, those that sometimes have to walk away because it’s too tough, those who are constantly asking what they can do to help me.  But even though all those personalities are surrounding me, I know when it gets closer to my time, they will all work together to make it as peaceful as possible for me.  So, I learned a new meaning for The Clean House.

Ryan is a very responsible young man who has his sights set on a political career.  He actually pays attention to what is going on in the area and is beginning to get a grip of what Greene County needs to strengthen the Greene County Republican Party.  He also though, like me, wants to help the citizens, not just hold a titled elected position.  He has shown that dedication to me by helping me with my transition from council to MSA Advocacy.  He has been there at every event, taking responsibility for making sure they are successful and at the same time, being at my side to make sure these events don’t take a toll on me.  He has learned to watch for the telltale signs that I am about to crash.  He is at my side, being there in case I stumble.  I wanted to show him how much I appreciated his service, so I had asked our Mayor to allow the council to present him with a certificate of appreciation.  We presented the certificate to Ryan at the Council meeting last Monday.  I had originally planned on making the presentation a surprise, but late that afternoon I remembered Ryan is still a teenager, and as a parent, would want to be there if my child was receiving recognition, so I called him to let him know.  He was able to, in that short time, figure out exactly what he wanted to say when he accepted the certificate.  It was very eloquent, but I must say, embarrassing for me.  I wanted to show him my appreciation, but his acceptance speech was centered around me and my struggle with MSA.  That’s a sign of a great politician.  Someone that is not there for the glory for them.  Someone that knows that what they are doing is for the people.  Ryan, you are an exceptional young man, I am proud to call you my friend.

This week,Ohio held their elections.  As I have mentioned before,Fairbornwas electing new faces for council.  I was glad to see new people step up to take on the challenge.  With new faces come new perspectives.  I have been teasing Joan Dautel, the Mayor that we are “old business”.  She refers to us as “lame ducks”.  I haven’t embraced that term, maybe for obvious reasons, but we share the same journey.  We were both term limited, so we were standing on the sidelines watching the new candidates eagerly waiting for the election night results.  Well three of the five candidates knew the outcome of the votes that evening.  Two of them had high enough numbers to definitely be part of the new council.  One knew their vote wasn’t high enough to make it.  But the other two ended up with 12 votes separating them.   Way too close to call, especially with all the provisional ballots still outstanding.  So they will be in limbo for the next 30 days until all the votes are in and confirmed.   Each one of them did a fine job of campaigning with very high ethics and I congratulate them all.

Another meaning of clean house I guess would be with the seating of the new council. Fairborn has seen very little change of their leaders in the past.  It seems to me that those on council would do their terms, be off for a short amount of time and then be reappointed to a position, then run for office again.  Same people, same ideas.  I think Fairborn has become stagnant.  I am happy to see with the last two elections that we now have four new faces on the bench.  I hope that the new ideas working with the older experience will come up with some future plans to help Fairborn out of the place they have become. Fairborn voters also approved both the police and fire levies.  It isn’t the end all solution, but it’s a start.  So, here’s to the new council!  Let’s get to work cleaning up Fairborn, dusting her off, and get her back on the right track!

Of course with all this activity and emotional baggage that goes along with it, I forgot about pacing myself as everyone and their mother has warned me of.  So, on Wednesday morning, the day after the elections, I crashed.  Not a regular crash.  This one was monumental.  Part of my MSA symptoms is autonomic failure.  That means my blood pressure becomes too low to make my body, and especially brain functions operate properly.  Apparently I became disoriented and wandered out to the streets.  I guess I must have called Susan.  She was able to tell by our conversation that I was in trouble and re-routed Angelina from her drive to school to find me.

I am very proud of Angelina.  This is the first time she has had to be the one to handle an episode like this.  I have heard her tell her Mother the story of what transpired.  She found me walking down the sidewalk.  She pulled up next to me, but when she called for me, I didn’t answer.  She said I was stumbling and had a blank look on my face.  She quickly parked her car and ran after me.  She was able to get me inside a business and into a chair.  She tears up when she tells of how she held my face, “just like you do, Mom”, and tried to bring me back, but I was too far out of it.  She knew that she needed to get medical help for me and acted appropriately and responsibly.  She rode in the ambulance and was on the phone to her Mother giving her updates.  She says she remembers Susan asking her if the siren she was hearing was coming from the ambulance she was in and just kept telling her to ask the squad why they were running code.  The answer was because I was unresponsive.

I don’t remember much except waking up in ICU with wires attached to everything they could attach them too.  They brought Susan in and I asked her if she was ok.  She shook her head no.  I reached out to hold her.  I felt so very bad.  I can’t imagine how scared she and Angelina were.  But worse than that, I know I can help control those events.  I have to learn to pace myself and rest.  That’s so much easier said than done.  My brain says go, but my body can’t anymore.  While I was there, they checked me over thoroughly, including a pacemaker evaluation.  A few months ago, my pacer was operating at about 15%.  That meant that my heart was able to operate on its own 85% of the time without assistance.  Now the pacer is operating at 72%.  That means at my heart operates on its own only about 27% of the time.  Without the pacemaker, my heart was struggling to beat at 42bpm.  As bad as that sounds, and it does mean the atrophy is affecting my heart, the pacer is jolting the top part of my heart, but then the bottom of my heart kicks in on its own.  The test showed that the bottom lead to the pacer does not have to kick in.  I’ll take that.

Admiral John Welsh Frank Cervone

On Friday, with much protest from Susan, I attended the Veteran’s Day Ceremony in downtown Fairborn.  It was so heartwarming to see all those that turned out in the cold to honor our Veterans.  I was also proud to see how many uniformed persons that were there, both active and retired from all the wars.  Especially Mr. John Tornichio, a World War II veteran that helped make the country the great lady it is today.  We had people from every branch of the military represented, even the Coast Guard.  I know it sounds funny to think of the Coast Guard in Ohio, but we have our very own Admiral.  Rear Admiral John S. Welsh.  John is a great asset not only to the Coast Guard, but toFairbornand I am proud to call him my friend.  Thank you to all Veterans for your service.

So with all this, I think I will have to take all of the doctor’s advice and take it easy. Pace myself.  We are going to take a little vacation for the Thanksgiving holiday and go visit our family in New York so I won’t have a posting next week.  I hope each of you get to spend some quality time with your families and have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

See you after the holiday!

This entry was posted on November 13, 2011 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Conservative, Frank Cervone, MSA, Republican. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.