Home!  No one was more surprised than I was when my neurosurgeon came into my room this morning and asked if I would like to go home.  She had originally suggested a possible five day recovery in the hospital, but this morning she reminded me that she had also told me some of her patients have gone home in three.  I am blessed to be one of those three day patients.  

I reminded her of what I told her when she visited me just before the surgery on Monday.  I told her, "You have a lot of people praying for you this morning."  This morning I told her, "You are an answer to a lot of prayers, including mine."  

The most notable thing about my recovery has been how unremarkable it has been.  It always raises questions for me about why me?  Why me while in another part of the hospital a young  hangs in the balance between life and death brain damage  and I head home with a very operable brain disease (Normal Pressure Hydrocephelus).  It is certainly not because I have earned a better diagnosis or a simpler cure. 

Two weeks before my surgery date, I asked a small group of friends to join me in the chapel of the church where I worship these days.  I asked my rector if he would lead us prayers for healing of my body.  I told him the surgery had been postponed and asked if the prayers for healing would last two weeks until my postponed surgery.  He reminded us that what we were doing there that day was to pray for anything in me that would impede what God wanted to do in my life and in the life of all who choose to follow God.  God wants all of us to be made whole in whatever ways we need it most that will reflect God's power working through us: physically, emotionallly, or spiritually. 

I pray for the young man who is still being healed either in this life or in the life that is to come.  I pray that he be given the same grace I feel today and I hope I can accept the responsibility of it;  the healing of my body through the advances in modern medicine, the skill of my physicians who used it, the wonderful caring staff nurses, aides, and other hospital staff from whom I received such excellent care.  I pray that he has people like you in his life who are also praying for him that any impedients that might hinder his healing; and I pray that he be healed and his family be comforted.  

Thank you for being part of my team.