Sick as a Dog

I have been sick as a dog for over a week now. We arrived in Italy a week and three days ago. I was still recovering from three pulled teeth when I started showing cold symptoms. Those quickly turned to a sinus infection, with bronchitis tempting its way in. After a few days in Ancona, we moved to Verona one week ago on June 12th. Angie and I came down and got the keys to the apartment from our rental agents. We then cleaned some, got some pizza from a nearby pizza by the slice place and proceeded to sleep on air mattresses, the kind you go camping on. The next morning around 6:30 AM we got a call that the movers were looking for our building. They arrived and we started the process of getting everything put into rooms around the house. They used the same method as when they moved us out of our apartment in Ancona, that is they used a ladder with a motorized platform. It raised and lowered, bringing all of our stuff from the ground to our fourth floor apartment balcony. The owner, Pino, was at the top of the ladder getting stuff off. After he and I would remove the boxes/furniture from the platform, he would send it down, I would tell him where stuff went, then he and I would carrying to each room. Every once in awhile I had to head to the bathroom to cough up congestion. As the day went on it got worse and worse. After getting all of our stuff moved in, we just crashed. For the first time in over two years we are in a stable living situation. Between my illnesses and our tiredness, we couldn't do much that day. Angie and I have been doing what we could as the week went on. We didn't even unpack the TV until tonight!!! We just watched some stuff on the computer.

The thing is I don't even remember the last time I was this sick, oh wait....yeah I do, it was in March/April 2001 right after we had arrived in Italy the first time. I had stomach issues, got bronchitis and fell down two slippery marble stairwells landing right on the middle of my back. I think the enemy would love to use my sickness as a way to get us off balance from the start here in Verona. It didn't work when we first arrived in Italy and its not going to work now either.

On that note, I am retreating to bed to rest. In six hours we are getting up so that a plumber can fix a few things that should have been fixed before we moved in. But if that would have happened, we would have never met the man we are going to meet tomorrow. Maybe God has something in store for him.