The writer of a suspense novel couldn’t have created all the twists and turns of the way this situation is unfolding. Lea is stable today, and is looking better all the time. She is still in critical condition, and still won’t be able to communicate with us for several weeks, but at least she isn’t as close to death as she was yesterday.

Our friend, Joe, who had the heart attack the day before Lea got sick, is also in stable condition one floor up in the same hospital. That is quite an achievement considering that he was clinically dead for a period of 4-6 minutes Thursday night! His heart actually went into Ventricular fibrillation while it was also in Arterial fibrillation, which means that he just wasn’t pumping any blood at all.

At about 10:00 p.m. Thursday night the nursing staff on the tenth floor intensive care unit, where Joe is located, were able to keep oxygen flowing into him, and operate his lungs, while they prepared to apply the electrical zaps to restart his heart. In a matter of a few minutes they had his heart operating with a normal sinus rhythm, and were able to get him back to a stable state. Clinically, he had been dead!

Joe remains stable today, is talking, complaining about the quality of the food, and sending Pat to the cafeteria to get him something “good” to eat. This episode will delay his transfer to Indianapolis, but probably only by a few days, as long as the blood clot in his heart dissolves properly, and doesn’t move out into his system.

The day after, Lea went from critical to very critical, and almost terminal, hours after her surgery. The cultures taken from her abdomen won’t be completed until Sunday afternoon, but should be ready for Dr. Curtain to review before doing her next (10 th) surgery. Dr. Curtain is the head of surgery here at the hospital. Sunday is his day off. I am concerned that having him do the surgery indicates that a serious decision has to be made, and he wants to have a look first hand.

I was not able to meet with the surgeons today, as planned, because they had to go into an emergency surgery, and didn’t make rounds. I am hoping to get to visit with Dr. Curtain Sunday, to get a better idea of our roadmap, and what situations we are faced with, and what our odds of survival really are. I want to be optimistic that Lea is going to recover, but I want to be realistic too.

She is in critical condition. Her chances of survival . . . well, Dr. Mah said that the odds are against her, but he remains optimistic. (I liked it better before this last surgery, when he said he was VERY optimistic.) We need your prayers for a miraculous recovery. Lea is no where near to being out of the woods. She isn’t even able to run any of her own major organs without a machine’s assistance. She is very, very sick. Please lift her needs up to God, and ask Him for the blessing of a miraculous recovery.

May your love and charity come back to you a hundredfold,

Larry