[Insert What I Did This Summer Here]

...continued.

After seven days in the hospital I returned home to all my boxes. My mother. My daughter. And Nina the cat. I couldn't have been happier.

My sister is remarkable. She is the mother of five children; her youngest daughter Leah has down syndrome and requires special attention. She has three grandchildren - one of whom was born two floors above me in Mercy Hospital on June 9 (at this point Ben was less than a week old). She teaches piano lessons in her home and is active in church. She also helped my mother care for my ailing father during the final years of his life.

In the middle of everything she has going on, she and her husband, Bill, picked out and purchased a twin-size mattress for me so I would be more comfortable when I returned home from the hospital. They moved the queen-size bed out of my room and the new twin in its place, making more room for me.

Before I had gotten sick, I had purchased a new desk and shelves at Ikea, but that's as far as I got. Bill came by after work one evening and put them up. I had drawn a sketch of how I wanted everything arranged on the white floating shelves, and Kara sifted through boxes in the living room. The hallway. The garage. Until she had retrieved all the items on my sketch. Did I mention that it was June in Oklahoma and hot? And that the unmarked boxes in the garage were piled to the ceiling on top of couches, washers, dryers, and various other furniture pieces? AND, that the garage was already full of boxes that my parents had not unpacked since they moved to Edmond three years ago?

Also did I mention that I was recovering from major surgery and have an open womb to drain crud from my stomach and can barely manage to sit up without help?

I don't like being so helpless.

To be continued...