My Sister, Lyn...

 

This is one of my favorite photographs of me with my sisters. In this one, we're top to bottom, oldest to youngest. Through all the years, we've taken many pictures like this.

 

This was all of us (left to right = oldest to youngest) at Dad's Celebration of Life in August, 2020. My sister, Lyn was leaning on my brother as she stood between us. She was already frail from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. There is no cure.
 

 

 

Here are the Four Sisters again at Lyn's Birthday party July 2023. She could barely make it from their vehicle to the house, so she sat here until it was time to leave.

 

Saturday, I got a call that she was back in the hospital in the intensive care unit since Friday. She now has end stage COPD. Her daughters are here from Minnesota and Colorado, our 86 year old mum, Di, Jan and I are all here and we've been to the hospital to be with her. Our youngest brother came home from vacation in Georgia yesterday to see her, and I assume our other brother will be here soon, too. This weekend has not been good.

She's improved enough so that she can probably leave the ICU in the next day or so to go home. She's scheduled to again meet with a transplant team on November 21st to assess whether or not she's a candidate for a lung transplant. She is 5'6" tall and currently weighs 98 pounds. (That's not good.) Her husband is hopeful that they'll approve her for a new lung and that she'll be fine. Lyn has said she'll see what the team says and go from there.

Sunday brought Handsome's last concert of the season with the Fond du Lac Symphonic Band. It was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in Fond du Lac. It was a wonderful and moving concert, at one point moving me to tears. Why does that always happen when I've left all my hankies at home? It's been an emotional weekend, and the music released all that I'd repressed. It was all I could do not to weep out loud. I was sitting next to Mum and she whispered, "Are you alright?" I could only nod. I was finally able to pull myself together before the piece was finished, and maintained my composure the rest of the afternoon. Between the venue and the music, I'm surprised there was a dry eye in the place. 

I'm going to town again today to spend time with Diana and Mum. I'm not sure about going back to the hospital right now. Lyn spends most of her time sedated, so acknowledging visitors takes a lot out of her. I'll get updates from her daughters about if and when she's going to go home, and will see her in the next day or so.

 

If you have a prayer or kind thought that you might spare, I'd sure appreciate if you could lift it for my sister. We're praying for her to be comfortable and pain-free, as she's neither right now. I'm going to grab my travel Yeti, fill it with coffee and go meet up with Di soon. Thanks for listening.