We're sharing a picture of our son, Travis, and his father taken earlier this month. 
A little over four (4) months ago I had an accident; don't remember if I mentioned before or not. I was starting to sit down on my office chair, which has wheels, and it rolled away from me and I landed on the floor. My knees were caught and twisted inside the center of my desk and I hit the left side of my face and had a little cut from that.
It took awhile for my knees to get settled down. I really didn't think I'd done anything to much to my back but the pain kept getting worse over the course of the four (4) months until I finally made it into our doctor. The pain was absolutely excruciating! Most times just stepping on my left foot caused such pain that I couldn't walk very well. I told Papa Allen that it felt like a terribly pinched nerve or something dislocated.
We told our doctor what was happening and he, of course, sent me to ex-ray. Laying flat on my back on that steel table was more than excruciating! But about a week later the pain was gone. It was like when I laid on that table something popped into place. The good news is I did have have a compound fracture as our doctor thought. The bad news is my arthritis, in the lumbar region, is getting worse. As long as I know what it is I can start doing my exercises again to strengthen the surrounding muscles. I'd stopped because I was afraid of making a bad situation worse until I knew, for sure, what was wrong. Hopefully, I can also resume my early morning walks when it gets warmer.
In-the-meantime, our doctor put me on a narcotic for the pain. He told me I might get sick, etc. What he didn't tell me is that I would feel like I was at death's door after taking three (3) of those things! I was so afraid that night that I asked Papa to sit with me until I felt better which took me several hours. I got sick to my stomach and everything. I was terrified of closing my eyes for fear that I would open them again. I've been close to death a couple of times before and this is what it felt like.
Anyway, I'm finally feeling much better. Oh, last week I got the flu, of course! Papa had it, got better and got it again. We've really been having our problems. But Papa has been out in the garage straightening it up; getting rid of a lot of things we no longer want to keep so we can have room for the new things Papa got last summer like new tool chests, etc.
It was such a beautiful day that Papa was going to replace the water pump on our truck but the toilet went goofy and he had to replace parts in it instead. He's hoping for tomorrow. So with what time was left we went grocery shopping. We needed just a few things but, I'm sure, you know how that goes. We came out with more than what was on our list!
We're hoping tomorrow will be another beautiful day; got to 57 today. That's very uncharacteristic of WC Iowa in February. I would have loved to been able to go outside and clean up a small garden we have between the deck and house. It's only about two (2) feet wide and the length of the deck; about 12 or 13 feet. It's hard to get into but the ground is wet from the snow and following Perfect for pulling up things we don't want. With all the traveling we had to do last summer and working on our kitchen in the fall we didn't have much time for yard work.
Wishing everyone a very good night!
Much Love, Junie and Papa Allen
