So this is why we have travel insurance...

Hola from the hospital!

A funny thing happened to me this week - I begun to have pains in my abdomen on Tuesday evening and thought it was simply a case of food poisoning or something else mundane. Well, by Thursday afternoon, I was in excruciating pain and in the Emergency Room at Willowbrook Methodist Hospital. Now, keep in mind that my wife had been telling me to go to the doctor since Tuesday evening, but alas, I was not smart enough to agree with her.

So here I am Friday evening after finally going into the hospital yesterday for an emergency appendectomy. Since I won't post the picture of my appendix in this blog post, I will just provide you a link to Wikipedia for your own reading pleasure. Needless to say, I was very fortunate to have access to such good care as my appendix was very close to rupturing.

Now why is this newsworthy to the blog? Well, I thought to myself yesterday how fortunate I am that this occurred now and not right before the trip to Guatemala or in Guatemala for that matter. Yet, our mission team is very fortunate in that we have a really good travel insurance policy in the event that these unforeseen events occur. Our good friends at SOS went through the time and effort to arrange a travel insurance policy for their team and ours.

Obviously, we hope to never need this insurance, but it is there to make sure that we have the best care accessible whether that means staying in Guatemala or flying back to the U.S. for a procedure. That sure is peace of mind to me.

By the way, the picture below is members of last year's Prince of Peace mission delegation along with the Fr. Diego Agapito Santiago. (He's the man with the red shirt, glasses and long hair.) Members of the POPCC delegation for 2006 were Tony Stewart, Miguel Alvizures, Philomela Jamiro, Lily Villarreal, Elaine White, and myself.

Now, on a completely separate, but somewhat related note: I am often reminded in unexpected ways of how blessed I am to be part of the Prince of Peace Catholic Community. Recently, when Elaine and I lost our twins at the end of her first trimester, we received some many loving words, notes and cards of care, compassion and concern. This was also the case when we lost our daughter a few years ago as she was stillborn.

And today, I had the pleasure of receiving Holy Communion from Barbara Crum as she is a volunteer with the parish's Pastoral Care. While my wife registered me as being Catholic, I did not expect that someone from the parish would come by to share their love of Christ and pray with us. I feel so very touched and fortunate. Thus, thank you to all who are involved in Pastoral Care, including Deacon Al Prescott who leads this gargantuan effort. May God continue to bless you for the work that you do as you have blessed so many people in your work.