wow

Thursday Dec 24th, I took my uncle paul to the emergency room here. he could not walk and by the time we got to the ER he could not even move his legs and the pain was almost unbearable. He had called the neurosurgeon that had done 2 surgeries on hi neck back in St Louis for advice. he told us to go to the ER and get an MRI. The ER doctor told us there were no symptoms to warrant an MRI, he could only treat him for pain (we could only guess that he thought the pain was the was causing the lack of motion even though we begged for and demanded an MRI...he said he just could not do it with the symptoms). My aunt Georgia was also coming down with some kind of cold and was not feeling well. we had a big discussion to either take my uncle to a different ER around here, or just get him home to st louis and let them take care of him. the final choice was for me to help get them back the STL. Georgia could drive but could not help Paul in anyway if he needed to get out of the car for any reason. i quickly called some people (Kim Chapman, Doyle and Bonnie Chapman, Lori Roark, Terri Tumlon, and Ester Baker) who gladly helped with Karen here while i drove to STL. My aunt and uncle bought me a one way ticket to fly back to Atlanta. So, just after opening presents on Christmas day, making sure that karen had her chemo and lunch, we drove to St. Luke's Hospital in south STL (10 hour drive) and arrived there at 9pm central time. by 4 am the ER doctor there had ordered an MRI which showed something at the base of his spinal chord that looked like a bulging disk, AND a growth around a kidney. a neurosurgeon was called in who did emergency surgery to remove the disk (8am) by noon the next day he was back in his room resting from the surgery...it should take a shot amount of time for him to get back his movement in his legs from rehab. the kidney thing is something they will have to deal with in the next few weeks. i flew back in to ATL 9pm last night and Coach Worsham picked me up and brought me home.

Steve my brother and his kids showed up at 3 am for a short visit this week

what a weird house i live in.