Long Time, No Post

Wow. Where did the last month go?

It's been a crazy summer so far. Early in June, our niece Kaitlyn came to visit for a week. It was a week packed with activities...zoo trips, a museum visit, a visit to the Domes, among other things. During that very week, with our lease approaching it's end mid-August, we decided to transfer to a different apartment within the same building, a one bedroom instead of a two bedroom. We're using the savings in rent to continue paying down the still-growing medical bills. The one bedroom in our building was available in June, and we made the switch just two weeks ago. Talk about a quick unanticipated move. Fortunately, we had a couple of great friends available on short notice to help with the move and everything went quickly and smoothly.

As busy as we were with those two things alone, we also celebrated the opening of Lorence Martial Arts Studio. Classes started the second week in June and the number of students is continuing to grow. An exciting adventure for both of us, although more so for Brian, as anyone taking Tae Kwon Do lessons from me would be very disappointed. Brian has always been an excellent teacher, and this is a great opportunity for him to combine that love of teaching with his love of martial arts. There's already much interest in his next round of beginner's classes, as well as women's self-defense classes. It'll be exciting to see how it changes and grows over the next several months.

And of course, my health. Overall, signs of progress have never been so great. I have finally begun knocking down the ginormous wall of fatigue. I was able to actually physically help with the move, and even kept up with everyone. Given that the old apartment was downstairs and the new apartment upstairs, carrying just a couple of boxes would have been a huge improvement for me. I was up at 5:00 and able to go strong all day, breaking only for lunch. I did (conveniently) need the following day to recover, and Brian was left with cleaning the old apartment alone. But a surprise phone call from my parents came in that morning, and they were on their way to help with the cleaning. What a blessing!

In all the chaos of the month, I got off track on my meds two separate times. Each time after not being on treatment for a couple days, things slowly started to creep back. And upon getting myself back on track, each time came with a day of more severe illness...fevers, chills, horrible body aches, sleep paralysis, and brain function problems. Medically speaking, the bacteria hides well when the medicine's in my system and come out to play once the meds seem to be gone, resulting in the dreaded die-off each time I start up again. The good news however, was that it only lasted one day each time, which would have been weeks previously. Those little buggers must be greatly shrinking in number. Amazing! Even with bumps in the road, I've been able to continue to build on the progress.

So hopefully now things will start to settle into a new routine. My improved health is making me more functional by the day. Brian is getting used to his new earlier shift at work, and teaching evening classes twice week. And we're remembering that our apartment key works upstairs now, not downstairs.