Dear Ferret Folks-

On behalf of myself and my sister Caroline and nephew Alexander, I
send out a MILLION thank-you's to the people who sent little Alex (8)
Halloween cards and goodies while his mother was ill and recuperating
from surgery. Except maybe to LISA OSTERICH, who sent nearly five
pounds of candy. The kid was out of his mind for three days! (You
hate me, don't you Lisa?)

My sister's surgery went badly, and a planned small keyhole extraction
of an ovary turned into a full-blown open 'er up abdominal procedure.
Basically, she wound up having a c-section just to get at the bad
ovary, which endometriosis had glued to her other internal organs with
the scar tissue so typical to the endomietrial process. For those not
familiar with the condition, it is a sort of auto-immune thing that
nobody really understands. It runs in my family, and is a major cause
of female infertility. The good news is my sister does NOT have cancer.
The sad news is that the scarring is now so bad that she will not be
having any more kids. She is heartbroken.

So what was supposed to be a small surgery turned into a BIG one.
Caroline was laid out danged near flat for a week. Morphine , vicodin,
codeine and probably all opiate pain medications do not agree with her.
She was hearing stuff, seeing stuff. We had to cut them out early. So
for those of you who have had a c-section, (they simply opened up the
old c-section scar that Alexander was delivered through) imagine
recuperating from it on *Motrin*, and having an active eight year old.
A *very* active eight year old. Some nights Caroline stayed at my house
just so she could get some real rest. Some nights Alexander stayed
at my house so that Caroline could get some decent rest. And in the
middle of all that, there was the matter of getting Alexander ready for
school, making sure there was coverage when he got home, etc. Meals
still needed to be made, laundry still needed to be done. It was one
HELL of an undertaking! I put a million miles on my car between the
fifty mile round trip to my sister's house, trips to the hospital,
etc. etc. etc. Thank the lord that my father came up from his home in
Philadelphia to help!

Alex was of course scared to death. We had told him that this wasn't
going to be a big deal. And...it was. A very big deal. Caroline was
in the hospital for a few nights, home, and then nearly had to be
readmitted a few days later. It was a BIG DEAL in his small eyes. He
cried the morning she left for the surgery, cried bitter tears. And
then the grown-ups got scared...not good. Not good at all. He had been
convinced that she would die and he would never see her again, and
then...she didn't come home.

It helped a LOT that he got to run to the mailbox and find all sorts
of wild and wonderful and sometimes just wonderfully weird Halloween
treats in the mail. Sometimes just post-cards, sometimes cards,
sometimes small packages, sometimes LARGE ones (Lisa, what did I ever
do to you? THREE DAYS!) On several occasions Alex found *money* in the
cards. He really, really likes *money*. Somebody understands the eight
year old psyche particularly well. There were little toys, glo-sticks,
stickers, pictures of ferrets, all sorts of things. One little boy even
drew pictures for Alex!

Alex is here in the room with me and I just asked him "What would
you like me to say to the people who sent you all of those things?"
He said "THAAAAANK YOU!!! They were nice and thank you."

Yup. Thank you. A million times. You have no idea how stressful things
actually turned out to be, and your kindness really, really helped. My
sister particularly wants to thank you. After the week of her just
being a flat thing, there was the week of her shuffling around slowly,
walking with a cane. She enjoyed opening up the envelopes and little
packages with Alexander and seeing what was inside. She very much
wanted to keep a list of all the return addresses of folks who had
sent things so that Alexander could send you a small thank-you note
in return. Alas, Alexander was running a large part of the household
for a while there, and she has no idea where a lot of those names and
addresses are. Instead of individual thank-you's she has asked me to
send you this:

 Dear Ferret Friends--
 
 On behalf of myself and Alexander I would like to thank the senders
 of Alex's packages and cards for their kindness and generosity. I
 had unexpected abdominal surgery and Alex has had a rough time of
 it trying to cope with his mother being sick. I wish that you could
 have seen just how happy you have made this little boy!

 Thank you!
 Caroline Sargent
 Mother of Alexander Hale

[Posted in FML 7247]