I tell this (ok, with a sigh) from what seems ages and ages hence…
1. The Pain
The slightest movement triggered the pain. The. Slightest. Movement. So I lay in bed and didn’t budge. The only exception was when the Fair and Industrious Trudy came in with Ibuprofen and a glass of water.
Just lifting my head to drink the water was excruciating. It wasn’t electric pain. It wasn’t shooting pain. Not sharp. Not tingle-y. Not hot. It was a severe cramp from my back, into my right hip flexors and glutes, down my right quads, and across to the outside of my right shin.
As long as I remained motionless, it went away. Yet it lurked under the surface. Lying in wait. Assaulting me at the slightest movement with a ferocity that I have not encountered before.
Mind you, I am no stranger to pain. I have had… shall we say… several encounters with it. We are well acquainted. But this was different. I was instantly subdued.
2. Next Week’s Lessons
With time and enough Advil, I figured things would improve over the weekend. I assumed that I’d have time to prepare next week’s distance-learning algebra lessons. But Saturday’s sun rose and set. Saturday night came and went. Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon.
I was running for the cliff.
Late Sunday, I began to doubt what was going to happen. The students would be checking Google Classroom tomorrow, but I had not prepared anything. I had had plenty of time to think it thru. I knew what I wanted to cover. But how on earth was I going to pull this off?
Mercifully, late Sunday afternoon I found myself able to sit up after a fashion. So I moved into this room, leaning way back in my chair, trying to stay as straight as possible. And I wrote two lessons worth of notes (with colored pens and cartoon figures and example problems) and two homework sets. I scanned and uploaded everything to Google Classroom, including six short video screencasts of me talking the kids thru the notes.
3. Monday, Monday
Looking back, I’m not sure just how it came together, but it did. The process stretched into the wee hours of Monday morning, with me finally returning to bed at 3:00 in the morning.
So when Monday dawned, the Classrooms were ready, from the READ ME FIRST message at the top with a Monday Morning video greeting, to the check-in and check-out questions, to the lesson videos, and the two homework assignments.
In celebration, I also posted a link of the Mamas and the Papas singing “Monday, Monday”.