I'm fine, thanks--about to be discharged from physical therapy (and ordered into a gym membership, where my orthopod's trainer can keep an eye on me lest I backslide) and (knock wood) coming out the other side of a nasty allergy season w/o an asthma attack. But two of my nearest and dearest can use your prayers, good thoughts, and healing energy:
My 90-yr-old father in law suffered a massive ischemic stroke (with a small central bleed) last Sunday. He is in Weiss Memorial Hospital, more aware than comatose now, able to gesture and mumble just well enough for us to understand how exhausted he is and how much pain he's in. (That's something nobody tells you about the aftereffects of stroke--either the patient doesn't make it back or the focus is on functional recovery; but the fact is that whether a blood vessel bursts or a blood clot chokes off a huge chunk of brain, it's bound to HURT like hell during consciousness).
And my dear friend Bob Berlien is in the ICU at Evanston Hospital, with a very nasty bleeding duodenal ulcer with possible perforation. He's lost considerable blood and is also in a lot of pain, not to mention exhaustion. We still don't know if surgery is in the offing, mainly because bleeding and scarring are obscuring the doctors' ability to clearly visualize his digestive tract.
So light those candles, spin those wheels, daven, chant, conjure, meditate, whatever--these two guys can use all the healing energy from whatever source they can get.