I'm so sorry for all your travail. Do your husband's doctors offer you alternatives and explain likely outcomes? Many times people experience stomach distress as 'chest pain'. Diverticulitis can be very painful. (I recall an aunt being on an IV while she fasted to rest her digestive system, but that was a long time ago; there are probably new treatments today.) Something that has helped me in times of stress is to remember that now is all *anyone* really has. Don't allow concerns about tomorrow to ruin the gift of today.

You've been through a lot. Wishing you much better days ahead. Glad your daughter was there with you as it is always best to have a second set of ears during these trying time. Prayers to wish you well.

joyfulguy: Go ahead and tell about Saurday night baths. Its part of our heritage that happened not so long ago, but might seem primitive by today standards. My sister and I with our 2 parents lived in a small 4 room house on a small farm in southern Illinois. Electricity did not reach these farms until 1947. During the 1940s, my sister and I bathed in a No.3 galvanized wash tub placed behind the kitchen stove to afford a screen. (Be careful not to back into the kitchen stove if it was fired up.) Water came from a pitcher pump at the kitchen sink. It drew water from a cistern. The cistern was replenished by rain water from the roof of the house. (We prayed for rain when the cistern ran low.) Water wss heated on the kitchen stove. The stove also contained a copper water tank that eventually heated 5 to 10 gallons of water. On hot summer nights, water may have been heated outside in another tub at the clothes washing site. We bathed on Saturday night so that we'd be fresh for church the next morning. That was the only scheduled bath of the week. In summer, just before supper, we might go the swimming hole in the river; It was only 1/4 mile from the house. That was a great way to rinse the sweat off and cool down. In 1947 after electric powewr came to the countryside (REA), the bathing routine did not change due to practicalities. After I entered high school in 1950, I got a shower every day at the end of the physical Ed class. That became my source of bathing (and athlete's foot). You probably should save the descriptions of outhouses for another time, but those were part of the landscape. Farm houses built in 1900 did not have plumbing. If you were out in a field, you went behind a bush. (My uncle cautioned me: "Do not squat with your spurs on!")

Thank all of you for your prayers,caring thoughts and hugs. They really do mean a lot to me. I have come to count on my Prayer Warriors.We are taking it one day at a time,but when Tuesday is over,and every thing is okay, I will feel like I can breathe again. I know that most of you know exactly how I am feeling.This board has had a lot of prayers asked for,and I have tried to always answer every one of them.