Last Week's Challenges

The Saturday before last in the morning friends showed up bright and early to help us clean our house and get it ready for renters. In spite of reading the email three times and it said, "Is 9:00AM too early?" I kept reading it as 9:30AM and said, "That would be great, we'll be ready for you." So, at 8:55AM my doorbell rings while I am lying in bed thinking I need to get up to shower. As I opened the door standing there in my pajamas, I was greeted by all six members of the Lee family with vacuum, broom, and rags in hand! They were such awesome workers and had the place almost whipped into shape by lunchtime.

My back was aching but I didn’t pay much attention as there was much to be done. The next morning my lower back muscles were really hurting and again I ignored them and pushed on through the day so we could go spend some time with the Boise Families Fellowship and say goodbye to some dear friends. Well, by Sunday afternoon, those same lower back muscles were screaming in pain and by Sunday evening I couldn’t even stand up straight or walk.

Sunday night, I ended up crawling up the stairs to bed. And in the morning when I again couldn’t stand up, I ended up sliding/crawling down the stairs face-first (yes, it was a stupid move, I now admit) and there I stayed flat on the floor for the next three days. I did call into the doctor’s office on Monday and he prescribed a muscle relaxant that Phillip drove to the pharmacy and picked up for me. Each day I was hoping for just a slight improvement but none came and my hopes of getting on an airplane to fly to Germany at the end of the week began to wane.

Thankfully, my wonderful mother-in-law called and offered to drive down to Boise and help me and the kids try and get ready to leave the country. She arrived on Wednesday afternoon and immediately starting nursing me back to health, playing with the little girls and working through my task list of what needed to be done before we left the country. On Thursday and Friday Connie spent much of those days driving me around to doctor appointments to try and get me up and walking so I could get on the airplane on Saturday.