Personal Update (Amended)

Some of you with whom I communicate in other ways know about the following.

Tomorrow, my cousin Claudia, like both sister and mother to me, is having emergency surgery on both her carotid arteries. As do all surgeries, this procedure entails certain risks, stroke being the most fearful one.

Claudia is fifty-eight years old. At the age of thirty-nine, her father died of a massive coronary, so much of her coronary-artery and peripheral-artery disease is genetic, and is grateful that she lives in a time which has available medical technology which her father didn't have Since at least 2000, she has been battling coronary artery disease and already has stents in ten other arteries.

Besides the inherent urgency of surgery on when each is more than 75% blocked, Claudia also has a kidney tumor. Surgery to stabilize the integrity of her carotids is required before the kidney tumor can be addressed surgically in some six weeks. Time is of the essence in removing this kidney tumor because there is a 50-50 chance the tumor is cancer, but kidney surgery has to wait until Claudia is completely recovered from tomorrow's procedure.

Claudia and I are asking for prayer during this difficult time.

My presence here in the blogosphere after tomorrow will depend on the outcome of Claudia's surgery — if indeed the surgery takes place. Snow, complicated by a layer of ice, is in the forecast for the D.C. area.

Meanwhile, you can browse through the items posted here. I've been posting quite frequently the past several days.

Update: The surgeons did only the left carotid today, so the right carotid will be addressed in two weeks. That glitch postpones the kidney surgery even more, unless the urologist and the cardiologist decide otherwise.

When Claudia wakes up later today, we'll then know whether or not she had a minor stroke, a complication which sometimes occurs with this type of surgery. No indications of a stroke right now.