Distracted

When Joe was sick and I looked for illustrations for my blog posts, in addition to the anatomical pictures, there were also the more fanciful, traditional, sometimes even cute "heart" pictures.

There's nothing cute about a liver.

I was wakeful last night, thinking about my friend and her sick daughter. My first thought of the morning was about them. They have been in and out of my mind all day.

They were transferred from the excellent community hospital where Caeli was a patient to a center city major teaching hospital on Sunday. Yesterday was full of studies, tests, interviews, all of the things that comprise a "work-up."

The outcome frightens me. And if it frightens me, what the heck is it doing to Caeli and to her mother, my friend of the past twenty-eight years?

Caeli is in complete liver failure and needs a transplant, either a partial organ from a matching living donor or a whole organ from a cadaver donor. The numbers "36 to 48 hours" were mentioned; I'm not totally clear whether that means the transplant is likely to occur within that time frame or if it must occur within that time frame. And, uncharacteristically, I'm not asking for clarification.

I've got a couple of quilt pictures to post. I've got topics to discuss. I even have the time to do these things. But they will wait. Because my mind, my heart, my prayers just aren't available right now. They're in a hospital room downtown.