Home again (in the other home). Almost.
January 14 we were making the final push to be ready to leave the house where we were staying at 6:15 a.m. I was packing my carry-on and reached down to pick up a passport off the edge of the bed and I suddenly had a fiery, raging pain that gripped my back and sent the signal to my brain to “make him stop moving.” Stop moving I did. I managed to get down to the floor after 30 minutes or so and remained there another almost hour and a half. Finally, I was able to get IN the bed, but the wracking pain continued throughout the night. Even the tiniest movement of any part of my body set off a chain of pain that I never knew existed. It became obvious about 3:00 a.m. that there was no way I was leaving the house at 6:15 a.m., much less making a 22 hour trip. Mary got on the phone and started talking to the emergency agent at Golden Rule Travel to find out what the options were. Eventually, we came to the very hard decision that they should go on without me and I (along with my mom) would follow them Thursday morning, January 19.
I stayed down and still and by the 18th, my back was feeling a lot better. However, in getting ready to leave, I was puttering around very slowly, but leaned the wrong way and it all started again. So we had to change the tickets again to a January 25 departure. I decided on Friday to go to the chiropractor and when he x-rayed my back, we knew what was wrong – a ruptured disc at the bottom of my spine. A few hours after I got home, my regular physician made a HOUSE CALL to check on me and put me through some diagnostic movements and determined that the rupture, while very painful, wasn’t affecting my legs or an other part of my back. He said that it should heal on its own and ordered me to either lay down or sit in a slightly reclined position for the next four days to allow the disc to patch itself to allow me to carefully make my trip on Wednesday. I’ve obeyed and my mom has done nearly everything for me so that I could stay down.
It’s Tuesday the 24th and too my doctor prescribed walk mid-morning and I survived it. My back is weak and it feels very fragile, but I am hopeful that with great carefulness I’ll be okay to travel tomorrow. My mom is more than ready. She’s worked herself up to the trip twice already and we had a false start. Lord willing, tomorrow we will set off for our other home.
Mary and the kids are doing well and they are settling in. Mary is ready for me to be there, but she did great getting everyone there and getting them settled at home. Today they moved furniture around (with the help of some friends) so that my mom’s room is set up and ready to go. She’ll have a bedroom and a private sitting room. It will be an adventure for her, to be sure, but she’s excited about the change and excited to have the opportunity to go.
Thank you for your continued prayers!
Continued prayers for the Malone family. Missing you at FBC.
Thank you for praying. It really makes a difference. And we miss FBC, too!