Hiatus in blogging explained

A fellow blogger who has served as inspiration and mentor to a degree has e-mailed me asking if I have given up on my blog. I am grateful he has called my attention to my prolonged absence, but my 16 year-old daughter has been in the hospital for the last five days with a very severe case of infectious mononucleosis and I have been at her bedside in the West Boca Medical Center Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for several hours a day. After the first couple of days, I myself began to become ill and the night before last slept 15 hours straight. Now the fellows in my poker group which plays Wednesday nights have all come down with bronchitis and it looks like I'm fighting the same strain.

My daughter's throat has been so constricted that she can barely talk. She has seen four EarNoseThroat Docs and they all say she has one of the most severe cases they have seen in quite a while. Mono has a sort of joke-reputation, but Niki looks like she will be in hospital for another week the way things look.

My wife, myself, and her boy friend have been at her bedside spelling each other in shifts and she is being fed intravenously. She has a very sweet nature and has a good attitude, but doesn't want to do much except sleep.

To cap it all off, my wife's parents on Cape Cod have lost their electricity and heat in the huge storm that creamed the NorthEast and are now in Yarmouth Wixon Middle School gym. They could afford a hotel, but prefer the experience of meeting new friends and are enjoying the free food [both are children of the Depression in their mid-80s].

I'm in my mid-60s and a little long in the tooth, I guess, for the daily brouhaha writing on current issues entails, so perhaps I will insert a few rambling pieces about the Classics [I studied Latin and Greek for many years and still read a bit]. My other interests are mythology, psychometrics, international relations, the Middle East, and French literature.

However, I had an open-heart operation several years back as well as two total knee procedures in 2003, so some of my former vim and vigor has deteriorated into energy peaks and troughs. Currently my daughter's illness has me in a trough-dynamic.

But I'll be back.