Ukraine.

 

I recently ordered a wood carving of Our Lady of Pokrov from a Ukrainian Catholic artist on Etsy. He and his employees reside in Lviv, near Poland. 

But the deluded tyrant who is attacking his homeland has made it clear that he will not settle for less than vassalization of the whole land. I told him to not worry about completing the item and use the money as he sees fit.

I pray for his safety and for all the victims of aggression in this war.

 

OK. Things are somewhat better.

Better, if not exactly good. It does not appear that I will be wearing a barrel nor carrying a sign that says "Will Offer Sardonic Commentary For Food."

My credit rating will probably be pining for the fjords, but it wasn't exactly voom before that.

As to when I might be offering sardonic commentary on a more regular basis, well...that's one of those hard to say things. Not as hard to say, perhaps, as "Oh, my God! Somebody help me! There's a man in my office with a *flamethrower*!" But still hard to say.

Heather is at thirty two weeks with our sixth, after all, and it is essential that I keep her happy in her increasing discomfort.

Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts--they are much appreciated, and I know they helped.

All is not well.

The muse has left me temporarily, at least.

More to the point, I've been undergoing some difficulties of late. Fortunately, none directly involve the family, who are all hale and hearty, and my marriage to the wonderful Heather is rock-solid.

But, unanticipated financial difficulties, brought on by what seems to have been truly bad advice provided to us, appear poised to bite me on the ass. The stress is unpleasant, and unremitting.

Your prayers, good thoughts and the like are welcome.

Vast improvement.

Lizzie is doing much better today. She is still going to be hospitalized until Friday, but that looks more and more like the discharge date, too. Her oxygen mix has been decreased from 40% to 25% over the course of today, and she's getting more active and vocal. And ticked, from what I can hear over the phone.

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes--they mean more than you know.

Prayers would be welcome.

Elizabeth, our 17 month old, was admitted to the hospital yesterday with respiratory distress. With the assistance of Tamiflu, Louis, Maddie and I weathered a case of the influenza, and we thought that Lizzie had the same. Three days of medicine didn't make a dent, which now makes sense since last night's x-rays determined that it was pneumonia.

Today, the doctor leading her treatment team told Heather that Lizzie is not getting out before Friday at the earliest. She is "the sickest child in the peds ward" of a large hospital. In attempt to reassure that did the opposite, he said that it is a short trip to the ICU for her should it be necessary.

One hell of a week.

My mother-in-law has been in the hospital since Monday with a bad infection--basically, an untreated ear infection gone septic. She's had it for, oh, I don't know--4 weeks now. Heather told her to get it treated when they met at Mass on Sunday, and Mom agreed--but ended up calling the ambulance because she couldn't walk.

The first kicker--we didn't find out until yesterday. The good news is that she was the one calling to inform us. She seemed better, if weak, yesterday. She was eating and able to hold it down.

The other kicker is that she is going to have to be in for another week to ten days for continued IV antibiotics and physical rehab--she's too weak to walk now. After she is discharged, she will need another 3-5 weeks of IV antibiotic as well.

Prayers and good thoughts welcome--this was a scary one. Kicker 3--yesterday was Heather's birthday. "Happy Freakin' Birthday!" as our good friend Shelly put it.

Finally, you Michiganders may have heard about the plane that went down in Lake Michigan as it was taking a patient to the Mayo Clinic. It took off from my hometown's airport, and our family knew everyone on the plane. I worked for co-pilot Earl Davidson's construction company one summer back in college, and Dr. Hall was the father of one of my friends in high school and my sister-in-law's physician. They were both fine, community-minded men, and my Mom and Dad speak well of the Pavliks and Jerry Freed, the only survivor. It's torn a hole in the heart of my birthplace, so prayers and good thoughts are welcome there, too.

Not an according-to-Hoyle miracle....

But close enough for government work.

Friends went to visit Aunt Margie at the hospital yesterday evening.

She greeted them with a chipper "How are ya doin'?"

!

We're all a little flattened, but in a good way.

She's scheduled for a couple more weeks of observation/rehab, but she's raring to get home.

Christmas came a bit early, thanks be to God.

Prayer request.

My Aunt Margie, one of my Dad's sisters, is dying. She and her late husband, my Uncle Don, used to watch my brother and me when my parents went on vacations. She taught us Yahtzee and always made sure we had the name brand cereal in the little boxes. Spoiled us right rotten, and this continued into late life, granting us permission to hunt on her property over the past decade plus.

She's suffering from congestive heart failure and is currently non-responsive.

In the immortal words of Bullwinkle...

This time for sure!

We are going in this morning. Elizabeth will be born today, the only question being the same way as her sisters and brothers or via c-section.

If I could trouble you for prayers/thoughts that she has flipped back out of breech...well, we'd appreciate them.

Grandma Jo died a couple of hours ago.

It will sink in later.

And now a turn for the better.

Continuing thanks, folks. Grandma Jo's a tough one. Against all expectations, she rallied some today, squeezed my Dad's hand and again showed some level of responsiveness and awareness.

Oh, and one of those stories that sends a chill: two weeks ago, Grandma Jo was visiting her sister. Her sister, hearing some activity in the kitchen, came in and found Grandma there.

"What's wrong?"

Grandma said, very calmly, that she'd had a dream. "I can't sleep. Bob said he's ready for me."

"Bob" is my late grandfather.

My grandma has taken a turn for the worse.

She is no longer responsive and is not expected to make it through the night.

Your continued prayers and good thoughts are welcome.

Thanks.

Grandma Jo remains alert and Mom think she is getting a little stronger each time she visits. She's able to lift her head off of the pillow a little bit now. We'll have the results of the CT scan back today.

Hopefully I'll be able to get up to see her later this week.

Prayer request.

My Grandma Jo suffered a heart attack and a stroke. All things considered, she's doing as well as can be hoped (she is alert and responsive), and her stroke is the clot kind, not the bleeding on the brain variety.

The next 24-48 hours will be crucial to determine how much she has lost to the stroke.

Also, say a prayer of thanks for her "nosy" neighbors, who noticed she hadn't parked her car in the pole barn and went in through the window to find her when she didn't answer the door.

Prayer request.

I would like to blog about our pumpkin and tomato growing successes, the birth of our cat's litter of five or the overdue book reviews, but I'm requesting your prayers instead.

My eleven year old nephew was attacked by a group of teenagers last Sunday. In addition to outnumbering him by up to 12 to 1, they thought it would be hilarious to film it on their camera phones--"Youtube!" they said. Oh, and my nephew's little sister was a witness, too.

There are many words that have come to mind over the past few days--reiver, reprisal, let them hate so long as they fear.... Those words are not models of Christianity, no. But they are certainly in the human (and definitely the Celtic) DNA.

Turns out that filming it was a bad idea, as this constitutes something called "evidence" and tends to make a lie out of your statements to the police that your victim was the attacker.

As does a history of similar violence for one of the assailants.

My nephew is out of the hospital, but returned to school yesterday, which can't have been easy, given that he's facing the thugs there. But he's keeping his head high.

Prayers for my family would be appreciated.

Louis is back.

Heather and he returned home at 7:30pm yesterday. The penny was lodged sideways in his esophagus, letting liquids, but not solids, pass. There was no way it was going to pass through naturally either. Also, he had his first IV go subcutaneous, which was grotesque. He's home and feeling much better. So is Mom.

Thanks for the prayers and thoughts. Here's hoping for dull. And for the opportunity to blog later on.

My baby boy is in the hospital.

Louis swallowed a coin and they are going to try to remove it this morning. Prayers and good thoughts/wishes welcome.

Storm heaven.

Jeff Culbreath had a heart attack and is in the hospital.

Jeff is one of those blogosphere guys I've always wanted to meet. Just a couple of hours ago I reloaded my day planner with the business cards I bought from his printing company (which he later sold to take up farming).

It's not right.

Pray for him and his family.

[Update, 12/12/08: See Comment 35: No heart attack after all, and he's going to be coming home. Deo gratias.]

This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.

Remember that happy talk about the stomach bug missing Heather and me? It's 50% accurate now. If that's not sufficient to guess who's the suffering party, remember that Heather's immune system laughs derisively at Ebola.


If you're going to spew, spew into this.



[Update, 11/8/08: And then there were two. Rachel has it now. And I look like a scarlet-eyed raccoon, having ruptured the capillaries in the skin around my eyes during last night's festivities. It was so bad I missed saying an office in the Liturgy of the Hours for the first time in four years. Prayers for the family requested. If this is rotovirus, we're in for a miserable ride.]

Prayer request for my sister-in-law, Maria, and her mother.

Maria's mother, Bobbie, has leukemia and is being moved into hospice care this week. Doctors are giving her until this Friday.

This comes less than five years after Maria's father died.

For all the screaming and yelling about the stock market last week (and I've done my share), this is vastly more important.

Thanks.