Last night as I was winding down for bed in the lounge of the 10th floor of the Eaton wing of the Toronto General Hospital I put on the TV for a bit. Out of the blue a guy walks into my 'bedroom' and asks me if I play hockey. It turns out from our conversation that he was sure he recognized from his ball hockey league. He spent the night in emergency in St. B. after one of his ball hockey games in Winnipeg in the beginning of August of last summer, but I don't think that was a connection either......whatever the case we chatted for quite a while...and Daryl's story is truly quite amazing....He...now 29, was diagnosed with a stage 4 cancer at 18...he underwent the usual chemo...surgery...but then the doctors just sent him home...they didn't know what they would do if his cancer kept growing...he wasn't satisfied...he 'randomly' researched on the internet...got a hold of some herbs...his tumors shrunk...doctors were amazed...being a young zealous guy he told everyone he knew about this product that was healing him...to make a long story short he now owns a nutrition supplement business with 30,000 clients....anyway...i noticed earlier that whenever he walked around the hospital he walked pretty fast...i thought he must be doing pretty good...it turns out that on June 12 he had his chest opened 'like a suitcase' and benign tumors (formerly malignant) removed from his lungs and belly area...we could hardly argue about nutritional supplements with someone who is obviously doing so well. The doctors told him he would be in hospital atleast six weeks...he's flying home on Monday...he is such an encouraging guy to talk to...plus i had spent alot of time thinking about what kind of 'supplements' i would get for Ramona from now on. Those decisions have always felt huge to me...this seemed divinely inspired that Daryl and I talked last night....anyway...the day at the hospital wasn't incredibly eventful. Mony is now taking 1 percocet every two hours and two advil every 6 hours. That seems to sort of take care of the pain although she is never actually pain free. There are parts of wounds of the surgery that pain medication simply doesn't touch. I just mentioned to Ramona this evening that sometimes I don't get so excited about this blogging idea...to which she replied that the blog reminds people to pray...i appreciated that reminder from her...Thanks so much for continuing to pray for us.

'Til we meet again,
Earl

P.S. I can't remember if I blogged this earlier or not, but Dr. Waddell told Ramona that she wouldn't start feeling any better for about 3 weeks. That's kinda discouraging. 3 weeks is short relative to a lifetime, but in the moment....well you know