Friends and health

My friend Chris who recently underwent seventeen-hour abdominal surgery for cancer was about to go home from the hospital in Washington yesterday when he began to experience pain. Eventually they decided he had pneumonia and needs to stay in the hospital another week. We are grateful it happened when and where it did, instead of with him and Linda in at airplane at 30,000 feet on the way back to Chicago. Please keep him in your prayers.

Today I ran into another friend who has cancer. Jeffrey is a fairly young man -- he's a grandfather, but everyone under fifty seems young to me these days -- and spent years in California as a very successful "masseur to the stars". He is a Ho-Chunk and came back to this area to be near his family when his illness got worse. Some weeks back he began to lose sight in his left eye, and he underwent an implant. Two weeks ago he said he didn't think it was going to help, but today he told me he can see out of that eye, although everything is blurry. Because this affects his driving, it has had a negative impact on him financially because most of his business out here is either in Madison (about an hour's drive) or LaCrosse (close to two hours). He hit a deer last week when it ran across the road from the left. He wasn't hurt, but the car sustained a couple of thousand dollars in damages. The deer didn't fare too well, either. Anyway, I gave him a ride to Wal-Mart to have his glasses fixed and then gave him a ride home.

Sr. Genevieve -- the Carmelite nun in Rhode Island who is from Buford, Georgia -- wrote to say her brother Frank is very near death. He is quite elderly and this is not unexpected, but I know she would appreciate your prayers, too. She and the other nuns in Barrington have prayed so hard for the Dodds over the years, and they continue to do so.

Vinko sent me another 34 pages of dissertation to edit, and I expect more Saturday. He wants me to get it all done and back to him for revision so he can send it to his supervisor next Wednesday. We'll see. I expect to spend about four hours on this section, judging from how long it took to do the first part. And I don't know how long the stuff that is coming on Saturday will be. I hope to finish what I have already received by Friday night, because I had planned to go with Tom to visit Bob Mitchell in Milwaukee on Saturday.

The squirrel is back with a friend, but they don't seem to have found a way to get to the bird feeder. For now at least they are just scarfing up what the birds scatter onto the ground.