Sorry for the lack of updates

Mother's been "home" for about a week now -- she left the hospital on Saturday (9/13) and has been staying with Aunt BJ and Uncle Arnie. They're not technically related to us, but they've always been Aunt and Uncle to me (I'm told it's a Southern thing?) Anyway, Aunt BJ is the one who originally convinced Mother to head to the ER when she was having a heart attack -- for which I'm VERY thankful. And she's a nurse (a doctor nurse, actually -- PhD in nursing, and a prof at UT's nursing school now) and wanted to have Mother at her house for a while so she could help take care of her. I'm so thankful that she's doing this, and that Mother has so many close friends around her while Evie and I are far away.

Anyway, she went home on oxygen, but is gradually using less and less -- she's down to using it only when she sleeps and occasionally other times. They finally decided that the nerve that controls the left side of her diaphragm (frenic nerve?), which passes very close to the heart, had been damaged or just "frozen" during surgery, so basically the left side of her diaphragm is paralyzed. Most of the time, this repairs itself in 4 months to a year (!), but in any case there's nothing they can do but watch and wait. Her body may just adjust to only breathing on one side.

She's generally feeling pretty good, but could still use prayer for:

• digestive health (she's having some troubles there, and it's making her very uncomfortable and frustrated)
• less coughing, especially while lying down -- this seems to have improved in the last day or two, but it's still painful and annoying for her
• increased energy and endurance every day, and eventually returning back to "normal" activity levels
• that her MS wouldn't have an exacerbation (apparently it's not uncommon after major surgery, and also she's been off her usual MS meds because they didn't want the medicine interfering with her surgical recovery)

Thanks!

And now an update of another kind -- our friend Xiao died this weekend in hospice care. Please pray for Michelle and their kids -- Nathan (the older one) especially, since he is old enough to really understand that Daddy's dead. Michelle has visitation/funeral info on Xiao's care page (link to the right).