Modern medicine

Every year about this time, I say a prayer of thanks for modern medicine. Particularly for Dr. Matthew M. Weinecke, the pediatric cardiologist whose experienced eye recognized that my weeks-old daughter was very very sick, and for Dr. Lawrence Fox and Dr. Jeffrey Heinle, the pediatric surgeons whose skilled hands performed the open-heart surgery on that tiny heart and saved my baby's life. Were it not for modern advances in diagnosing and repairing congenital heart defects, our family would be very different without our Sunshine.

Today I am again thankful for modern medicine. My mother-in-law is in the hospital with an abscess on her jaw that isn't responding to antibiotics. She's in a lot of pain, and apparently has a lot of swelling. She had a CAT scan earlier this morning to hopefully locate the abscess so they can surgically remove or drain it. The doctor likely won't even see the results until later tonight, so for now we're just waiting. The toughest part for us is that she's three and a half hours away in Oklahoma, and it's hard to worry long distance.

So if you read this, please take a moment to give thanks for the blessing of skilled doctors and for the healing power of prayer.