I write many of these blogs just after the monthly broadcast of my stories on WPCA-FM radio. I can talk about the story broadcast and consider how it comes off after some years in print. But last night was different. Marina had suffered a heart attack on February 28th and had been airlifted from St.Croix Falls to Regions Hospital in downtown St.Paul, Minnesota. That’s a two hour drive for us. Andy, Marina’s Seeing Eye Dog (and one of the authors of the book Gretel and Andy, God’s Gift; The Lives of Two Seeing Eye Dogs) and I drove and “lived” at Regions for several days, bringing Marina home last night amid one of those wonderful Spring Minnesota/Wisconsin blizzards. We got in the house at 8 p.m.; the story broadcast began at 7 p.m. so I have no idea which story the station chose to broadcast. (Small voice: “They’re all good so it doesn’t matter!”)
Marina is doing well and recuperating quickly. The prognosis is good. We do have a blizzard of pills to deal with and that is something new; we have not been “pill people” and are rarely sick, so this is a new chapter. Our faith in the Lord gets us through everything.
I do have to mention my pleasure in the teamwork and gathering together of our adult children. What a pleasure to see that happen and how wonderful to experience it! Together, they provided us support, both physical and emotional, as well as putting to work investigative time and effort with very good results. They put in time at the hospital with us and had a very effective communications chain to keep everyone in the loop. Bravo, team!
On another subject, I have an initial bit of interest from St.Croix Festival Theater for me to do another story reading evening as a fund raiser for them. We shall see if anything further develops.
You may note that another church service has been added to the month of March. I’ll be doing two services each Sunday on the 16th and 23rd preceded by one 10 a.m. service on this coming Sunday, March 9th. So when people ask me, “How do you like retirement?”. . . .