May 24 - Yet another bump in the long road

Greetings from Lexington, KY, where we are sheltered in a fine hotelery awaitin' the impending nuptials of our progeny. However, we almost didn't make it. You won't believe what happened.

Some of you got the prayer request, so you may have an inkling of what I'm about to tell you. On the way to Miller's to pick up Barbara this morning, I got a call from a nurse saying that they had called 911 and Barbara was en route to St. Mary's Hospital in Hobart. It seems that while an aide was transferring Barbara from the, uh, er, "potty" to her wheelchair, she experienced multiple pops and cracks in her left knee. She began screaming like a banshee on a xanthine alkaloid compound. When we (her mother and I) arrived at the hospital, she was distraught with pain and anxiety. She was equally upset over the prospect of not going to the wedding as she was with the pain. After several x-rays and many, many prayers, we found out that she had a severe knee sprain, but no broken bones. The good news was that the doctor cleared her to go to Lexington! The bad news is that she was in such severe pain, all transfers would have to be done by lifting her. Every move brought more of those banshee-esque screams. The doctor did prescribe her some pretty good dope, though, and we set off for the long, tedious 6 hour cruise.

Once the pain meds settled in, she began to do better. By about an hour into the trip, she was calm and actually quite pleasant. Jackie, Peter, and his brother met us at the hotel to help carry her out of the Honda, and into a chair, then into bed. As of now she's sleeping rather soundly.

It seems like something has just been pushing against us! In fact, all the way down to Lafayette, we experienced head-on winds that were very hard to accelerate against, and as a result, we got terrible gas mileage out of a normally good-mileage vehicle. On top of everything else, it seems only appropriate for this trip to continually exact an exorbitant price from us.

Thanks for your ongoing prayers. We will need some powerful help in the days ahead, so please remember us.