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]