Day 12

Nice and quiet today. Aimee is doing well. Breathing is almost back to normal. Her blood pressure and pulse are still a little bit high, but nothing to worry about. She's still neutropenic, so she can't go anywhere without a mask and still gets tired very easily. So she just rests.

Happy feast day of St. Faustina today, patron saint of mercy. Funny story-- When I was teaching at Assumption College, I would get a lot of jitters before class. During that year, I was borrowing an office from a professor who was on sabbatical, and all of his books, posters, and other odds and ends were still in the room. So I found myself pacing back and forth before my first class, looking for anything to take my mind off my anxiety. On one of the shelves, I spotted a little card that had a prayer to St. Faustina. I can't say I knew anything about her at the time, but I figured any prayer was better than none. So I got into the habit of saying this one before each class (so that God would have mercy on me and not let the kids rip me to shreds.):


O Jesus, who filled Saint Faustina with
profound veneration for Your boundless
Mercy, deign, if it be Your holy will, to grant
me, through her intercession, the grace for
which I fervently pray…

My sins render me unworthy of Your
Mercy, but be mindful of Saint Faustina's
spirit of sacrifice and self-denial, and reward
her virtue by granting the petition which,
with childlike trust, I present to You through
her intercession.

Our Father…, Hail Mary…, Glory Be…
Saint Faustina, pray for us.

I guess it worked too. I never suffered any physical harm from the students .... although I'm sure they seriously thought about it during my lectures on Kant's ethics.


Also:

-- I did a little research on some of the drugs Aimee is on. The effects of the Cytoxan (i.e., neutropenia) hit their nadir on days 10 - 14. But she should be mostly recovered by day 21.