Stepdad update

Tim had surgery yesterday, and it sounds like it was successful. Surgeons removed something like 14 inches from his bowel, and drained a Guinness book of world records' amount of pus from the infected area. He is now outfitted with a colostomy bag for the next several months while he recovers. Once sufficiently mended, there'll be another surgery to remove the colostomy bag.

Sounds like my mom and Tim got in the hospital in the nick of time. Fortunately, they were working with a surgeon who turned out to be really on top of things -- scheduling a CAT scan for Friday (I think), following up immediately on its results... If everybody had waited through this holiday weekend, Tim might not have made it -- post surgery, my mom says the surgeon described what he found in Tim's innards as "horrible" more times than she could count. So, thank you Universe, and you lovely readers for your prayers and healing vibrations!