It's been a while....surgery, clots, etc.

How much can you cram in a month?

I think that was the question I was trying to answer over the last 30+ days that saw me try to finish a class, including writing five papers - one 10-12 pages.  Guess what the class was on?

STRESS

No joke it was on preventing burnout in ministry and identifying and preventing becoming distressed.

But I digress...So, it is a little ironic isn't it that over the last 30 days I have had ankle surgery that left a 4 inch scar on my left ankle.  We have purchased a third car, and hopefully Saturday will sell one of the three.  I went back to work every other day for a week, but toward the end of my first week back I began to get an ever increasing pain in my calf.  At first I thought it was a cramp, but by the following Monday it was evident that the cramp was something a little more serious.  After spending all day at the Doctor's office and hospital I receive word that I had a clot. I proceeded to be put on two anticoagulants, one a shot I got to give myself twice a day in my abdomen for a week.  :)  It was like going through a second recovery, because I had to take pain meds again to deal with the pain in my calf.  Now I'm back to taking them only to help me sleep since my foot is still really sensitive to touch.  My dad came to mow the lawn last week only to have the mower break before the yard was even half completed.  That led to me finding someone to come mow it for me on a day when it actually decided to not rain.  

With the unexpected blood clot came the disappointment of not being able to do my usual Mother's Day shopping with the girls.  While we did make something happen it still was a disappointment. 

Did I mention the class was on dealing with stress?

Now on top of that I have a 40th borthday party to plan and implement for Kristi.  While I hope to be off crutches by then it will only be by the grace of God that I pull that thing off.

Tomorrow I will venture back to work in a wheelchair.  We'll see how that goes.  I am finally able to stand for a couple of minutes without too much pain, although my foot still turns purple.  

If I learned anything from my class on stress it was to reduce the number of things on your plate, so in lieu of plugging away at my Masters over the summer I'm going to take a break and maybe pick it back up in the Fall.  That is if we aren't going to be in Uganda in the Fall bringing home three children.

Of course that could still happen this summer, too.

Did I mention that the class was on stress?