March 12th, 2020 President Irwin of the London Temple announced to the American missionaries that they were being sent home due to the covid virus concerns. We wondered why they had not included the Australian and Canadian missionaries but by the time we found President Irwin at our apartment door later that evening, we had already obtained the information from the Church website and we knew he was there to announce our departure as well. He almost apologetically told us that we would have to isolate for two weeks after arriving home to insure that we hadn’t brought the virus with us. We were fine with two quiet weeks alone settling back into home. Well, we are now in April 2021 and in the second YEAR of isolation. We go for groceries, medical appointments, hair appointments but little else and we are still isolated. We have had our church services at home by zoom and we communicate with our family via zoom, messaging, FaceTime and phone or we talk in the yard. We were a little bit freer last spring and could see our children but things have clamped down since and today, when we went for Tom’s first radiation treatment at the hospital, they told me I could not go in with him as covid numbers had gone up. I am certain there will be an end to this but when we left England just over a year ago, we could have never imagined that we would still be spending most of our time in our home the following April 2021. We love each other and enjoy being together so that has been a bonus in this situation.
Miracles are a part of our everyday lives but our everyday eyes often fail to take note of them as they cross our paths. On my birthday Tom started to develop an angry looking rash on a large part of his body. Tom’s own doctor was worried that it was being caused by the main hormone he is taking for his cancer treatment. We contacted 4 pharmacists and all of them felt it would more likely be caused by the painkillers he was on for the pain he has been experiencing in his leg. The doctor replaced that painkiller with another and slowly the rash started to disappear. That was a blessing and a miracle. The painkillers however, started to create sever problems for his bowels and this past weekend as the rash was coming to an end he stopped taking the painkillers to help his bowels. Whenever he has tried to go without painkillers the last few months he has been unable to do so. He stopped taking them this time on Good Friday and didn’t tell me until Saturday. His pain was greatly diminished. He had now developed a pain in his upper back rib area but his leg pain is much better. With the pain killers gone the bowel problem cleared up too. All miracles and we felt very blessed and grateful. He just started a five day course of radiation today to help the leg pain and hopefully that will decrease the pain even further. His hormone treatments seem to helping and onward we go - challenged but trying to not miss the miracles. He even mowed and edged the lawn yesterday.
We enjoyed a wonderful General Conference weekend and celebrated Easter, which was a lovely sunny day, with our regular family zoom, our little turkey breast dinner on our own and our precious Savior and His Atonement - what more could we ask for.
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