March and April were lost time for me. They were dominated by my adventures with kidney stones–5mm, 8mm, and 9mm, all on the left side. It took three outpatient procedures (with full anesthesia, my first since 2nd grade) to resolve them. I only had one truly terrible day of unrelenting brain-melting pain, but there were far too many weeks when I couldn’t risk as much as a walk around the block.

With my activity that sharply curbed, I gained weight, fell behind on basic household maintenance, and completely lost momentum on the Second Layer Problem (discussed here previously). I’m working on getting back on task now, but my energy level is still sub-par.