4th of July, 2024! I pray you are having a wonderful day. 

Yes it has been a a while since I last wrote. We have been back from our vacation now for a couple of weeks and one would hope that life would be smooth, but that doesn’t seem to happen around here very often any more. When we cm e home from the vacation, Ms. Kate was having complications with breathing and rapid heart beat even when she exerted the slightest effort. She didn’t want to call the doctor  and decided that she would hope it would just get better. It didn’t. On Wednesday of last week she finally called her cardiologist office and they set her up with an appointment but it wasn’t until August 14th; a disappointing answer. By Thursday morning she couldn’t handle it anymore and called them again and they told her to go to the emergency room. We figured that she was in AFIB again because she has gone through this twice and has had to be shocked back into rhythm each time. The Emergency room doctors confirmed our fears and admitted her. 

They began a battery of tests which lasted over several days and finally determined that they would put in a pacemaker on Monday morning. In the meantime, they had changed some medications and started some others and she began to improve. Monday morning came and a new diagnostic plan was put into place that they would not put in a pacemaker but would instead make some changes to her medication. Tat was shocking to us ass it was a radical diversion from their other diagnosis. But —- to be clear, none of us wanted her to have a pacemaker, but it seemed that every time a new “specialist” came in, there was a different answer; and the one thing that bothered us was that no one had consulted with her actual Cardiologist because he is not in the Deaconess System but in the Ascension System. We told the heart team that we absolutely wanted her cardiologist in on any discussion of her treatment. They made that happen and her Cardiologist team came to see her and assure us that they were all in agreement with the new plan. 

So, now, she is home, doing well on a new medication regimen and is doing better than she has done in a very long time. All praise to God for the miracles that He allows mankind to perform. 

I want to give a shout-out to the Deaconess Midtown Hospital and their staff. There are two Deaconess Hospital locations here in Evansville. Midtown is “the old one” and Kate has been associated with it literally all her life because she was born there. The “new” Deaconess Gateway is a ginormous medical complex and is also a really good hospital but the atmosphere there, while much more bright and shiny, is also much more aloof and seemingly less caring. So, “Thank you” Midtown Deaconess hospital for your excellent care of Ms. Kate. 

During this last event, Julie came over from Louisville and spent a couple of days with us and then Lisa came up from North Carolina and spent a couple of days with us too. It was wonderful to have them here with us. Had she not gone home Tuesday, Heather was prepared to fly from California to be with us too. No wonder I love my girls so much. 

May God bless you on this day of celebration of our freedom. Peace.