Two Saturdays ago, we loaded up all the furniture and boxes that we had been packing for the last two months. Two Sundays ago, we drove the 570 miles from Valdosta, GA, to Danville, VA, in a caravan of two 26-foot long U-Haul trucks and three cars. If you're wondering how Linda and I were able to do all that caravanning, we had help. Our friends Ari Santas and his son Michael and Michael's friend John Reed helped us load and drive. They also-- along with our daughter Lillian -- helped us unload. We pulled into Danville about 7 pm Sunday night, and we immediately started unloading. By 230 am, we were done.
Except for the unpacking.
Ari, Michael, and John had to get back to Valdosta, so they got into Ari's little red car and drove.
Then we started unpacking.
It was all going smoothly until I came down with shingles. It's an illness with a funny name. I mean, I used to snicker when people said that they had shingles. No more. The pain around my heart and lungs was so strong that I thought I was having a heart attack.
The doctor gave me a shot of some kind of anti-shingles drug and a shot of B-12 and three prescriptions for a pain killer, an anti-inflammatory, and an anti-shingles drug. The drugs are knocking me out, making me dizzy, sleepy, and dopey. I’ve also been running a temperature and getting the chills.
Linda at one point took some photos of the two wide, red bands of rashes across my back, and we were going to post them on this blog, but we both decided that the world doesn't need to see how bad these rashes are.
Anyway, Linda and Lillian are unpacking while I sort of sit around and nap and try to keep from shaking with the chills.