Card Toot!

My card was printed in the newspaper on Christmas Day! The New Orleans' Times-Picayune put out a call for readers to send in Katrina related Christmas cards and I drew one up. What a fun surprise!

Surgery Delayed

After two days of doctor and hospital visits, EKGs, Xrays, talking with the anesthesiologist, lab work, etc. Julie gets a call about some scheduling conflict...not enough time for the procedure...only two neurosurgery ORs...other doctor scheduled first and gets priority...not enough ancillary hospital workers...shortened OR hours since the hurricane...blah, blah, blah! Seems that OR staff can make more money pulling out sheetrock! Seriously...that's what we were told! Julie had prepared herself and is not taking this delay very well as you can expect!

Great Stories Of Humanity

* In the Kireka slum outside Kampala, Uganda, hundreds of women earn about $1.20 per day pounding rocks by hand into walnut-sized pebbles for sale as construction material. Hearing of Katrina, 200 of them began a drive to raise money for the hurricane victims. They raised $900, and were so overjoyed at being able to make this gift that they held a celebration, complete with dancing. Their story is in today's Times-Picayune.
* In a similar vein, this story was reported here about 3½ weeks ago: St. Lawrence Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles took up a collection for Katrina's victims. The normal parish collection is $6,000; the special collection raised $7,000. But most touching was the gift of one woman. On the special-collection envelope, she wrote, ""Para las victimas del huracan, no traia dinero pero esto debe de tener algun valor. Es de todo corazon." ("For the victims of the hurricane. I did not bring any money. But this should be of some value. It is with all of my heart.") Inside the envelope, she placed her gold wedding ring.