I'm not well, but everyone else is!

Happy to be back home.

I gotta say, though, I'm not getting much of a break. I keep waiting to write. Waiting for things to get better, waiting for something wonderful to write. Well, there are wonderful things... of course, there always are wonderful things, thank Gd! We made it back safely, the house wasn't robbed this time, and my kids and Robert are all healthy, happy and well, thank Gd! Dovie, 18+1/2, just started what is called here "yeshivat hesder", or a year of Torah learning coordinated with the Israeli army. He's in yeshiva, a brand new place, and I can't wait to hear from him when he comes home this Shabbat about how it is going. Ya'akov is in 11th grade, at the same school in Jerusalem he was at and loved last year, Shifra is in 9th in the same school she was in for the last two years, and Azriel is the "big man on campus" in his last year of elementary school, in 6th grade.

Then there's me.
I haven't been well since we came back (almost a week ago). I can't even tell you what's wrong because I don't even know, but somethings big time wrong. I haven't felt this rotten in a long time, and that's saying something. I have been working on the issues with my new GP who I just switched to when I came back, so it's been hard for her, too, because she doesn't really know me. But she's getting to know me. I switched because my former GP has actually kind of been just like a paper pusher for the last few years. Also that health clinic was quite a distance from my home, this one is much closer. It's also nice for me to have an English-speaking doctor. She's a lovely person, and a new perspective is always good when health issues are complicated. I feel bad for being complicated, though. I feel like I am bugging her with my details. This happens to be a very difficult time period, and it's hard enough to start a patient-doctor relationship without it being a time when the patient is unwell. So, anyway, it is what it is, and I'm sure that's going to work itself out.

Over the next few days I'm going to get some tests done and try to figure out why I'm in so much pain and what is wrong. It's mostly my belly area, but also my right lower back, like kidney area which I have been talking about for months now. I have an ultrasound scheduled in a few weeks for that. I have no appetite, and no energy, and can't concentrate, and my belly just hurts all the time. Not cool.
And I still have the annoying little infection on the skin graft. I'm supposed to go to the plastic surgery clinic on Wednesday about that. We might wind up talking about fixing the small area of the skin graft that keeps getting infected. I'll update about how that goes. Of course, getting myself out, picking up kids from school, making food, doing errands for the kids, going to doctor appointments for tests, it's all really challenging these days, I can barely concentrate, I'm constantly in pain (but try not to show the kids), and I'm so, so weak.

I really can't write anymore- too hard (painful) to have the computer desk on my lap in bed, and too hard to sit in a chair for extended periods of time. Yeah, it's that bad.

I'll update when I know more.
Things will get better, I know this is temporary. (I gotta repeat that to myself a lot....)
I have so many other thoughts I'd like to write. I just can't have the laptop near my swollen knee (which I had x-rayed today... stage one in trying to diagnose the problem there, but it probably needs an MRI), and leaning too close to my belly with the laptop doesn't work well either. It's come to this. This is why I haven't been writing. weh.

Good night.

xoxoxoxoxo

Sarah Rachel Bat Tovah