Steve Kimock rocks! And we danced hard!

It has been a long time since I have blogged. You see, just after my April 12^th entry, my daughter had a strong attack of pancreatitis & wound up in Vancouver General Hospital. For you gall bladder naïve people, it goes like this: the gall bladder stores bile that is produced in the liver. When you eat, bile is dropped into your stomach to help with digestion. Likewise, the pancreas produces insulin & enzymes for digestion & delivers them to the stomach when you eat. The gall bladder & pancreas share a common duct into the stomach. When one gets a gall stone that blocks that duct, the pancreas backs up & the digestive juices begin to digest the pancreas itself. Yuck! <>This is what happened to my daughter Kefi. So we waited several days, first until the pancreatitis had settled & then until she finally went for gall bladder removal. The surgery was performed laproscopically. The wonders of modern western medicine! <>

The entire hospital experience was both tough & miraculous. I watched my daughter & her wonderful boyfriend deal with this emergency, the waiting & now the recovery, in a way that has vastly increased my esteem for those two young people. I am proud to be related to them. <>

If I told you that my daughter was placed in a room into which a 500 pound woman was transferred from ICU, having had surgery to remove skin infected with flesh eating bacteria that she had caught at another BC hospital, you would tell me I was making that up. Or if I told you that surgeons work 36 hour shifts, you would tell me I was nuts. Or that morphine was suggested to my daughter more than a dozen times. Remarkably, she got through this experience on Tylenols. <>

And then came the week of recovery for all of us. I have recovered by dancing & walking the streets of my neighborhood this spectacular spring. I do not remember a more vivid spring. That is exciting. <>
I have only 10 days more before I leave for San Francisco. I will begin my stay in the Bay Area by attending parts of the Seva Foundation board meeting. I will be at the Seva benefit with Phil & Friends at Berkeley Community Theatre on Sunday, May 15^th, Wavy’s birthday, womaning the Camp Winnarainbow table in the lobby. <>

Camp Winnarainbow for Adults is June 11^th – 19^th this year & the anticipation is building! I want to post some photos for those of you who only look at the pictures & you know who you are.