Hello Everyone,

These letters will be getting more and more brief as the situation stabilizes and as my literary muse starts to fade.

Leif has a fever of 102-103 and that is too high the doctors say. Apparently a fever of 101.5 is beneficial to the body's efforts to fight an infection but beyond that it should be lowered.

A cooling blanket (hooked up to a special machine) and tylenol (administered via a suppository or through the tube into the stomach) were somewhat effective.

Samples of urine, blood and sputnum from the lungs were taken and will be cultured to see what bacterial infection is causing the fever.

I was going to see the dressing changed on Leif's arm but they decided against letting me view it today. Perhaps tomorrow.

Elin came down after work to sit with Leif and Amy and I happened to be there at the same time so we all sat in the room together. Elin remarked that Leif looked like a "Sleeping Beauty". It does look like he is having a deep and long sleep.

After Elin and Amy left I sat for a while gathering questions for the main physician who was on duty. All kinds of questions that my overactive mind thunk up. And Dr. Matthews was most informative and patient with my endless queries.

What do I conclude? Leif IS getting superb care with current and optimal treatments. He is a very sick man but still has a good chance to come through this. It will be a long road till he is out of the intensive care unit and another long road through skin grafting and rehabilitation. We'd better settle in for the long run and pace ourselves.

This morning I did weed whacking in the backyard and was most pleasantly surprised to see ooodles of apricots on my tree. I have had very little fruit from it in the 5 years that I have had it and I thought I had pruned too late this year and I presumed that the rains came at the wrong time because in prior years the same happened and I had gotten ZIPPPO apricots. This year I will have over a hundred and they are deeeeliiiiish and flavorful.

So, Hope Springs Eternal in health crises and in apricots. You can quote me on that one.

Jon

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