Family Crisis

My Uncle Jake was rushed to the emergency room last night in the latest of a string of very bad symptoms for which no one's been able to come up with an explanation or resolution.

After exhausting the options offered by the doctors where they live in Indiana, my aunt and uncle had begun travelling to the Mayo Clinic in New York in hopes to find someone there who could help him.

Now...please understand. These aren't "inconvenient" symptoms. They're serious, involving his body's refusal to absorb/retain iron, difficulty in digesting food (resulting in an alarming drop in weight), etc.. My mom put it best when she said - without exaggeration - "We're losing him, and he could die before they figure out what's wrong." The tests have been invasive and frustratingly unfruitful. It's hard to find negative biopsy results a relief when you still don't know what's wrong. Yay, it's not cancer, but he's still getting sicker and no one seems to be able to help him.

Back to last night...

They were driving back from another trip to the Mayo that had yielded no results, and they pulled off the highway to eat just outside of Chicago. Thank God it was my uncle driving, and thank God he stopped for dinner. His head began to swim, and he collapsed. He was taken to the hospital coming into and out of consciousness.

They estimated that he lost about half the blood in his body, and they don't know where the blood loss is happening. If my aunt had been driving, he may have fallen asleep and bled to death.

The one prayer that I have at this moment is that the one doctor who can figure out exactly what's going wrong with him is in the hospital he was rushed to last night. That this is somehow a blessing in disguise. That this will be the turning point.

The reason I post about this is to ask for prayers or good thoughts or positive energy from you, my 4 readers who don't live in this apartment. My family is going through a lot right now, and emotionally, we're just in tangles. This is my mom's big brother, a father of 3, and a very good man that we all love so very much.

And if you see me in the next day or two, please understand if I'm not quite myself.