...And a Couple Steps Back...and Then a Couple Forward Again...

So this morning at six I was awakened because I thought that in my sleep I must have walked somewhere and fallen down stairs and then someone had beaten me up for good measure. Every joint in my body ached, and even though I had David get me my medication right away I felt really, really crappy and very, very sore. Hm-mm. So was all this progress in pain reduction "in my head" as many would think it could be, considering the somewhat bizarre program I've been on for the past 6 days or so? Or was this an example of "mine sickness" that many feel when the radon begins to really affect whatever ails you? Well, it's easy to have faith when you're feeling great and not being tried in any way; it's more difficult to continue being positive when you feel like someone has just spent ten minutes working you over with a baseball bat. Another one of the Universe's "Pop Quizzes" , I told myself, to see if I had really learned anything about being faithful or if I was just a fairweather believer that I'm able to get better. So I spent the morning sitting in bed, nursing a cup of coffee, and reassembling my thoughts so I didn't succumb to the over-indulgence of feeling sorry for myself. And while I did that, David reorganized our van, because we've been evicted for the weekend from our sweet and ratty motel room. Evidently there's a wedding here this weekend and the guy needs our room...something like that. Doesn't really matter--my hours at the mine are up tomorrow--we'll do my final two hours here and take off for Yellowstone and then on to Pinedale WY, David's old stomping grounds.

We got to the mine after noontime and I stayed in the radon room until about 3. When I left I walked part of the way, without assistance. Once again I had no pain in my knees, or none much to speak of. And my hands had stopped aching so much. So there you go, and here I am, sitting again and waiting to see what might happen next--and what might happen after this. I am grateful when I'm allowed some relatively pain-free time, considering where I was last winter. And I'm grateful to be able to sleep for several hours at a time in a relatively comfortable state. And I'm sure David is grateful that I'm not waking him up every two hours to help me turn over and re-position my pillows, etc. He's not running so much on empty any more because he's at least getting some sleep. I have no idea where this will lead, and I have to say I know I'm a long way from being able to get off the bed or out of a chair by myself and am a long way from being able to type more than a brief Blog entry without my hands aching madly. I figure it took me three years or so to get so impaired; it will probably take that to get me reasonably recovered. The illness is still at work: all one has to do is look at the directions that my fingers want to go in to know that, but this brief respite from huge pain is a wonderful and unexpected gift.

Enough of that: take a look at the flowers we saw yesterday on our lovely drive:

Yellow Lupine Something pink! Arnica amongst the Boulders

Field of Yellow Lupine