A BRIEF TIME OUT

Like Have Yourself an Unexpected Hospital Stay

In the spring of this year, I developed a blister on the top of my foot at the ankle.  I now think it was all because I was cutting down on the amount of meds I should have been taking, The blister developed an infection.  I tried to treat it and slowly it got worse....

My schedule for full spring developed:  A weeks trip to the Ozarks to visit my three oldest sisters, all younger than I; a conference to attend with my good friend, Pastor Randy Newton at Leaf River Baptist Church, Leaf River, Illinois; and finally a Revival Meeting with an old friend, Keith Beckman, in Port Arthur, Texas, May 5 and three more evenings. 

I did make the plane for Branson, Mo. and on ground, Pallie met me.  It was difficult to walk.  On arrival at their beautiful mountain home in Turner Community, near the Church our Parents had completed debt free in 1991, I went straight to bed.  Pallie checked my temp every four hours.  By morning they had decided and I was in full agreement, we should call the ambulance.  They did.  Before noon I was in ICU at Mercy Hospital, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

After about three days I was transferred up to a proper floor.  Dr. Paul Bean was my very excellent and capable hospitalist!  Wow!  What a Doc!  He knew what to do and did it.  I went in on Saturday and was discharged the next Saturday.  I could not have had better care.  Every nurse of any sort and all aids, all people of that hospital were wonderful... THANKS!

The Visit My Sisters Trip, was altered only in that they came to see me every day they could.  So I didn't go out hunting them.  We had some great visits that we might not have had.  After a great checkup with another most remarkable doctor, Gregory Pineau, I believed I was good to go.  (Am still sitting, walking a little, and recouping.  Dr. Pineau recommended, as well as did Dr. Bean, take to the end of the year to return to full use.)  I accept that as an important order.

Pastor Randy and his Church of Praying People, who paid my way to the Conference let me skip out on attending and I stayed in the mountain.  Sunday morning, April 28, Darrell had me sit on the platform with my leg elevated and bring a message to the small band of believers, several of whom had been gathered into the fold as teenagers forty years ago.

That afternoon Pallie drove me to Dallas, Texas where we spent the night with their daughter, their son-in-law and three beautiful, well behaved children.   In the morning they all went to work or school and we kept an appointment with dear friends of the past.  We stopped by a gorgeous market where I bought a bag of fresh walnuts, a bag of fresh pumpkin seeds and a small bottle of lemon oil to drop in drinking water.

Then on to the splendid home of dear Judy and Aris Cook.  We were mere children the last time I saw Judy Ryan under the great old elm tree where her mother, Sylvia, supervised us seven or eight children in the fine art of  cutting up lye pealed peaches (our Daddies had prepared) and dropping them into the number three cans to be filled with a delicious golden syrup our Mother was making in the kitchen before Sylvia sealed on the lids.  That hour and a half flew by far too quickly.  But such is life.  Great thanks to both of you, Judy and Aris.  It was truly an inspiring and elevating renewal.

Before nightfall Monday afternoon, May 29, Pallie had safely guided us through the rest of the Dallas complex and on down the road to Houston.  Here we unloaded for a few days in warm sunshine and beautiful green leafed trees, amid multitudes of flowers and cars and houses and people of all heights and races.  It has been a good time to sit in my corner, of the room, on the bed, in the back yard, at the eating table, under the overhang of the garage, with a computer in my lap, or a book in my hand and observe how a metropolitan family operates.  This one seems to know the importance of quietness.  Thank you Randy, Naomi, Andrew, Brendan, Jamison (for loan of your bed),  and Melissa.  Even Lucy and Pepper understand the importance of NOT yipping very often.

Tomorrow about noon, Pallie or someone, will drive me across town where old friend Pastor Keith Beckman will chauffeur me to Orange, Texas where he pastors the Anderson Indiana Church of God in Port Author, Texas.  Keith was a high school teen when I first met him in a Revival Meeting at Oregon, Illinois, Church of the Nazarene pastored by our Old and Very Dearly Venerated Friend, Stewart Able.  That was sometime in the mid 1970's. 

If the Lord wills, Friday noon, May 9, I expect to be flying Midwest Air from Houston to Midway Airport in Chicago.  There, all things being normal, I plan to catch a bus to Rockford where Joanna and the Kids, Elizza, Sebastian and Leo will inundated me and be inundated by me with multiple layers of hugs and kisses.

Thanks to all of you who read or wait to read.  Our readers of late include the USA, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Belarus and France.  God Bless!  Amen.