Home at the O-Z Motel in Boulder, MT

Here's the O-Z Motel, our home for awhile in Boulder. It's got a kitchenette and, although small is perfectly adequate for the time we're here. I actually dug through our stuff and found our juicer this morning and made juice (to make up for the hamburgers we've been eating on the road). Yesterday, we drove back north to Helena for lunch. A very interesting town with a long history and really interesting buildings. While there, we encountered a downpour that filled the streets with water, so we drove around til the rain let up enough to allow us to venture out of the van. Helena is like the San Francisco of Montanta; all up and down hills. It's not a very wheelchair friendly town, but we had a good time in spite of the steep grades. It looks like we'll be here till the weekend, so we're taking little side trips to explore the area. Boulder is a typical western town; population just over 1,400 and about 5 bars. There's also a little grocery, but not much in the way of full service restaurants. There are pleasant little residential neighborhoods and then sagebrush hills in every direction.
Annie seems to be doing improving daily, but I'll let her tell you about how she's feeling. All in all, this trip is turning out to be a wonderful adventure on many levels. Well, I'm not quite sure what to say; part of me is superstitious and is afraid that any positive comments will somehow jinx everything, but this is foolish thinking, I know, so I will just share with you those things that I have been able to do in the last 24 hours that I have not been able to do in a VERY (as in years) long time:

I can roll over in bed by myself; I can adjust my pillows and lift the covers with my hands; I can sleep on my side with my knees resting together without needing a pillow in between for the pain; I can walk uneven ground with my walker, taking over 25 steps; I can sit straight up in bed from a prone position without David having to lift me; I can lay on my back and extend both legs without huge pain in my knees; I can lay on my back and do ten leglifts with each leg, as compared to being able to do NO leglifts two weeks ago. So....something is happening here at the mine. I suppose it COULD be the prednisone, but even three weeks before we left Alaska I was feeling that I had plateau'ed with the amount of prednisone I was taking and was privately fearing that I was going to have to increase the dosage by the time we got to NM. Now it appears that I might be able to actually DECREASE the dosage a little bit. This is early and preliminary and we shall see how it all plays out. But I was actually woken up at 1:30 this morning because I WAS IN NO PAIN WHATSOEVER and that's such an unfamiliar feeling that it woke me up! So there you have it for today. We'll see what tomorrow may bring... ;*)