Today October 8th 2009

A strange day
A heavy day
This afternoon I will attend the funeral for a 10 year old boy who died in his sleep last week. A totally unexpected death. I cannot fathom the pain of his mother. How do you go on when there are mothers and sons everywhere in the world to always remind you?

Yesterday little 7 year old Grace had her second brain surgery for Moya Moya disease. It is a situation where the blood vessels in the brain are malformed and misconnected. This often results in strokes. Turns out she'd had a number of strokes but the last one where she had some weakness was brought her into the hospital and the Moya Moya was discovered a couple weeks ago. Last Wednesday she had surgery on the right side of her brain. She came out of it pretty well! This Wednesday's surgery was on the left side of the brain. Evidently it was not successful as the blood vessels they were going to connect was too small. So the plan is that they hope it will continue to grow and they will try again in 6 months. So this family now has to wait and wonder if or when their little girl is going to stroke again. And of course they know about the boy who died in his sleep. How will she face each morning, each day with an eagle eye on her daughter while also trying to care for her 4 boys ages 9, 4 and 14 month old twins.

Friend of jennyalice is in the ER with severe abdominal pain. Jenny is with her now. Her friends 3 kids are home with their Daddy

Tell your babies you love them. Tell them now. Tell them over and over.