some people walk in the rain...
other just get wet...
- roger miller



well, i'm getting pretty darn wet at the moment. i feel like it's raining and storming at times, right in front of my eyes...BUT i keep walking.

two days ago, my mom, who is 60, had a mini stroke. she's now back at home (in sacramento) and doing well, but it sure was quite a couple of days. then this morning, i got a call from steve. he's in kansas, doing some training with the army unit that he is going to deploy with, in october. well, during one of their breaks, they were playing football and as steve went to tackle the guy with the football, the guy moved and steve's face smashed into the guys head. steve has about five fractures of his left cheek bones and fracture fragments in his maxillary and orbital sinus cavities. he's flying home tonight and will hopefully see the local naval hospital's ear, nose and throat MD, in the morning. i'm not sure what's going to happen (surgery or what) but steve mentioned that he's in severe pain and he feels like his upper left teeth have shifted. he said that he looks fine and you can barely tell (on the outside) that anything is wrong, but he sure can feel it.

i'm worried about him but so thankful that he is okay. i'm hoping and praying that his flight home goes well and he is not in additional pain. they cleared him to fly home (in the pressurized cabin) and one other guy is traveling home with him, to make sure steve gets to san diego safely. through it all, i don't really feel stressed. i keep thinking how things could have been much worse and how lucky we really are. and then...i just am dealing with things as they come.

and funny enough, as i was typing this blog post, i hear kiele singing in the background, t's raining...it's pouring. the old man is snoring. i'm like...what? kiele, why are you singing that?. she didn't know i was writing this. well, it turned out that it was raining on her video game. how fitting it all was.

so signing off for now. more updates to come tomorrow, after steve (hopefully) sees ENT and we figure out what's really going on.

and again, thanks for all the wonderful emails. i am trying to email everyone back. if i haven't replied to you...i will soon ;-)

ETA: looks like we're going to the navy base ER tonight, to have steve evaluated here.