A little testma, please, at 7:00 ET/ 4:00 board time.

Requesting ma for my cousin. Remember when he learned he had cancer last week? Today they discovered that his liver is kaput, looks like he might die in the next 48 hours. Heading for home tomorrow am.

A little advance notice of my upcoming invasion of Canada. t g

I will be in Halifax, NS from August 23-25th, and in Toronto from the 25th to Sept. 1st. If any Buffistas in either of those places want to get together with me, let me know in e-mail.

(Yes, I know it's over a month away, but my schedule is filling up fast :))

Excuse me, 2003? Could you step over here behind this woodshed for a moment, please?

Health-ma and wedding-ma and prayers requested for Jill, a very dear friend of mine who is getting married next week. Seems she got an early wedding present from her neurologist, along with an explanation of why the whole left side of her body has been weak and numb for a week and a half: She has multiple sclerosis. She's been shot up with heavy-duty steroids this week to increase her chances of being able to actually walk down the aisle, but after that it's suppressive meds and an unknown future.

Jen, Deb, I may be leaning on you a little in the weeks to come. I'll try to do so gently.

I love you folks. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Major healthma requested for my friend Diana. I returned from vacation today to discover the following email from a mutual friend:

I am not sure if you are aware of the severity of Diana's situation, but it is now very bad. I know Mike hasn't sent an email update recently, but she needs URGENT prayer. I talked to him yesterday; Diana's body is giving out, and her other organs are now beginning to fail. She now needs a liver transplant AND a kidney transplant. Since she has a rare blood type, they are still waiting for a donor that matches her. There is a scale that measures "survivability" where 40=dead and 1=healthy, and Diana is now rated at a 32. Basically, she has another month, maybe 6 weeks, unless a donor is found. I wanted to let you know so that you could be in prayer for her.

Diana's "rare" blood type is B+, which I share. (I've always thought of it as at most moderately rare--it's about 3% of the US population IIRC, but I can see how it'd be an issue in her circumstances.) I'm really kicking myself for not sticking to the diet I started in January, because the one FAQ I could find about live donation said the donors have to be a healthy weight. I plan to track down some kind of expert on transplantation on Monday and find out if someone 30 lbs. overweight but otherwise in perfect health could be a candidate for live donation, and for that matter if it's still even an option for someone needing multiple organs. (I know I could theoretically spare a liver lobe and a kidney, but I'm not thrilled by the prospect.) The whole idea terrifies me, but if she dies I'd never forgive myself for not looking into it.

A little bit of good news... Charlie the dog is doing fine. We gave his owners a check for $185 last night, the sum of the donations we received. Thank you all.

I just remembered I had happy news, as well.

I am now a great-aunt. My eldest niece Angela, who's only 6 years my junior, had a daughter on July 3 named Laura Elizabeth, to be called Laura-Beth.

Today's my 16th wedding anniversary. I don't recall if I ever submitted this to the Calendar, and I apologize if this proves redundant.

Wow...just...wow.

While I was on the phone with Diana, her call waiting went off.

They think they have a donor for her.

They still have to do the last few tests/examinations to make sure the organs are healthy and good for transplanting, but they definitely have a matched donor for her. They should know by 10:30 EDT, so about 2 1/2 hours from now, and if all goes well will be doing the surgery tonight.

I'm laughing and crying at the same time, and praying very hard. Major healthma appreciated.

t on edit--I don't expect to know immediately what happened, because they won't be calling/emailing until after the surgery, but hopefully I'll hear something one way or the other by tomorrow

Not quite as serious as Susan's post, but I am also requesting health-ma for my mom. She is having surgery at 7:30 tomorrow morning. They expect everything to go hunky dory, and she should be home by early afternoon. I want it to go extra easy, though, because tomorrow is also my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. Sucks that she has to have surgery and recoop on that milestone day. But, knowing mom, she'll be home at 1:00pm and on the phone with work by 1:03pm. Nothing seems to stop her...