In Chicagoland. After a very stressful house hunting period, we finally found and bought the perfect house after selling our old one for almost 3x what we paid for it. Hired packers to pack the house (because my right shuld is screwed up and I still have issues with my right hand), movers loaded everything up, and shortly after they left we packed everything up into the car and left our old house behind.

Let me tell you, a cross country drive with 2 humans, three dogs (2 large, one medium) a cat, and a snake in a Kia Soul? Not wise. Not to say that there weren't fun parts, especially driving through the Coconino National Forest (there was a detour to the I-40 from I-17) at night and encountering SO MANY ELK. It was like the Elder Gods had come to see us off. Our plan had been to drive the 26 hours non-stop (aside from food and potty breaks for humans and furkids), but that didn't happen. So instead of 26 hours it was 36 long hours of sitting in the car, napping sitting up, and trying to keep the increasinly grumpy and distressed pups from irritating each other. At least it did mostly cure Arwen, our youngest pup, of her fear of car rides. Somehow.

Wish I could say everything went smoothly when we got to the new house, but it didn't. We had a week of sleeping on an uncomfortable airbed, as well as crowded together at our kitchen island working. All in our great big new house. And while I wish, really wish, I could say things got better once the movers arrived, it didn't. I had started having pain in my left lower calf on the last day of our drive. I was hoping it was just a cramp, and tried to ignore/stretch it out. It went away a couple days later, but then I started haing a lot of pain in my back. I attributed it to sleeping on the airbed, but the pain got so bad that eventually I couldn't lay down. Also started having a lot of breathing issues too, which I thought were just asthma related, albeit with a LOT of pain.

The day after the movers dropped our stuff off I woke up that morning completely unable to breathe. I bit the bullet and went to the ER where I got the fun diagnosis of not just a DVT blood clot in my left leg, but 2 pulmonary embolisms as well, one of which was almost 6 inches in size when they removed it during emergency surgery (we also learned after the fact that there was a hemorrhage in my right lung, too). I spent 2 days recovering in the ICU, not to mention weeks of working on getting my lungs back into working order. And I'm now on blood thinners for at least 6 months, with a pointed note to not hit my head on anything. Do you know how hard that is for me? I bumped my head on a cabinet when I was sitting down in the wheel chair to leave the hospital (in my defense, the nurse did park it under the cabinet). I've also bumped my head numerous times since then. I'm a clutz, it's not possible for me to not hit my head. Might as well tell me to stop breathing.

Of course, the funniest thing was a couple of days after we got home. We'd ordered chinese for dinner, and when I got to my fortune cookie it literally said, "A road trip with friends is just what you need". No, no it isn't Mr. UNfortune cookie.

What's weird, at least to me, is that this is most likley my closest brush with death (and I've had quite a few), but I was, and am, completely calm about it. Even when I was rolled into surgery and knowing that I've lost two friends to sudden DVT/PEs, I was calm. Don't know if it was my anxiety meds, or me just burying shit to survive, or what.

Suffice to say I am doing better. It's been just over three weeks and I've gotten back to a point where it doesnt hurt to breathe anymore, and have been able to return to my normal routine (with more standing/moving time, of course). And the house is finally getting into some semblance of order. Our most pressing issue now is to find a live rat to feed our very picky ball python. I can live with that.

And. BTW? Never moving cross country again. NEVER. The only way is if someone else is handling eveything, and we get flown in a private jet where I have room to move around. 4 cross country moves is enough.