Then

It started in the fall of 2000. We didn't know it then, but there were signs. We just didn't recognize what they meant. On a trip to a local discount store, both my daughter and I noticed my wife seemed to be walking funny. It was like a tiptoe stride. She said she was fine and we kind of laughed about it. What was happening was the tumor was so large it was blocking the flow of spinal fluid. We went to the store because we were doing some shopping for our upcoming trip. My wife and I planned a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary trip to Egypt.

She appeared to be fine after that and we left for our long awaited trip to see the Pyramids. We had a layover in London and spent that time looking around the Heathrow airport. While walking around she had a spell where she lost her strenghth and collapsed into my arms. Two English women came to my aid and brought over a chair for her to sit in. The women suggested that she needed something to eat since our flight had been over night and we didn't get much sleep. We were right near a pub, that is in the airport, so we went in to eat. It did help.

I couldn't help but to wonder if the funny walk and the loss of strength were related. I wanted to go home but she insisted that she was fine and wanted to continue. We did continue and the rest of the flight was uneventful. Everything seemed to be okay again. When we landed in Cairo it was still light outside. We took a bus to our hotel along with other people in our tour group.

Talk about history. As we traveled from the airport, the bus driver pointed out actual statues of Ramses. The hotel was beautiful and our upper floor room overlooked the Nile River. On the opposite side of the river I could see a boat anchored to the bank. It had bright colorful lights on the boat that spelled out what appeared to be english words. I found my binoculars to get a better look. The words spelled out Applebee's.

On the next posting I will talk about the start of the nightmare..