Frustrated

        Recently, I have been frustrated because I have had some back pain. It all started around early march, about my spring break. My back started hurting and it was annoying. I had a project due for my animal behavior class the week after spring break. I had to watch an animal and document it's behaviors. Since my back hurt I kept putting off going out to find an animal to watch, hoping that I would feel better the next day. I never really felt better and I finally realized that I should probably just tough it out and go find an animal to watch. I decided that I wanted to watch some ducks, that sounded like fun (apparently I am my grandfather's grandchild). I then thought, "How cool would it be if I got a video of ducklings following a momma duck around?" So I drove to Tempe Town Lake convinced I was going to get an awesome video of some ducks.
         Once I got to the lake, I looked around and I couldn't find any ducks, so I walked over to a pedestrian bridge to see if I could find some. I was walking around and I saw a duck, which I later learned was an American Coot and not really a duck at all, swim under the bridge. This was kind of frustrating, because I couldn't observe it while it was under the bridge. Then four coots swam out from under the bridge and I followed them around for a while as they did normal coot/duck type behaviors, and some kinda funky behaviors. Of course I couldn't get video of them doing anything super cool like dive bombing other coots, but I did get enough observations to write my report and make an accompanying video; however, there were no ducklings (cootlings?) following their mama in a cute little line.

     I finished the project and turned it in and went about my business. At this point my back was still hurting and I was getting more and more frustrated with it and trying to decide whether or not I needed to seek medical advice. By the time Friday rolled around, I was sick of my back hurting. I woke up and realized my back didn't hurt anymore!! I was extremely excited. I went to school, and then on the way home I stopped to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. As I got back into the truck after picking up the prescription, my back started to hurt in a completely different spot from where it had been hurting. I was extremely irritated, but the pain wasn't too horrible. Fast forward to that Saturday night, I stood up to go to bed and I felt a massive pain in my back. I got to the bed with Christy's help and decided to call it a night. On Sunday morning I woke up with my back hurting so bad I didn't think I would be able to get up. My dad came over and took me to the emergency room. They said that I had a lower back strain, probably a compensation strain from subconsciously changing my movements when my back originally hurt. They gave me some drugs and told me that was all they could do. That night my dad and a Steven came over to give me a blessing.
     I hurt for a couple of days, and then went to my doctor who gave me some stronger pain killers. I finally thought that I was going to be able to get back to my normal routines when I fell in the shower, and made everything hurt all over again. I was feeling very frustrated.
      Fast forward to Wednesday of this week, I had started feeling better over the weekend, and was excited that the back saga was finally coming to an end, when my back started hurting in a completely different spot from the other two times. Now I was extremely frustrated. I just wanted my back to feel better.
      That all led to this morning. I had a genetics test so I didn't want to take my powerful painkillers, cause they tend to make my head fog. I was annoyed that my back was hurting again, and I didn't really want to walk across campus and back multiple times, but I knew I needed to take the test. This morning as I said my prayers, I asked for help to just make it through my test and to feel less frustration over the recurring pain in my back. The test went by really quick and I had about forty five minutes before my next class started. I went and found a chair near my next class that looks out into this little pond area. I sat there and thought about my test, and my back, and school, you know just life in general. I was getting more and more frustrated just thinking about getting through the day, when I saw this...

      It was too late for my animal behavior project, but it was just at the right time for me. I was able to forget about everything else I had been thinking about at that time, and just focus on something that made me smile. My back still hurts, but I know that my Heavenly Father showed me a tender mercy today.