My brother, Pat

My next to the youngest brother, Patrick Alan Coons, was born January 3, 1954 at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri.  He had a bumpy start, needing a whole body transfusion at birth due to ABO incompatibility.  He was the sweetest little brother anyone could have, a laughing baby despite all he had been through. My father was fond of taking pictures of us when we were younger. I recently converted those slides to CDs and gave one to each of my brothers.  Last year, at the age of 58, Patrick was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.  We got together this month in Oklahoma first and then on to Missouri and spent a week together with our brother, Barry, who was also just diagnosed with metastatic cancer to his spine. The picture I have shown here is of Barry, Patrick and me at my daughter, Brandy's, house. Patrick's once strapping 6 foot 7 inch frame has shrunk from the illness. He has finished his radiation therapy and has been told there is nothing else to be done. I am waging war against cancer and I am praying in every way I know how to defeat this disease that has so haunted my family. My mother and father both died of lung cancer. All of my father's brothers and 1 sister died of cancer of some sort, as did his mother and father. I was not ready to see Patrick looking so ill. We live a long ways away from each other and in the past, many years would go by without out keeping touch. There would, after all, be all the time in the world for that. How many times have I thought that in my lifetime and how many times I have been wrong.  So for awhile, I will not be posting about prolife, though it is a cause I am highly devoted to and pray about.  I will not be posting about politics, though again, a cause I am very involved in. For awhile, I will be writing about my brother and my abject and profound love for him, and hoping that anyone reading this will pray for him along with me.  I am just not ready to let him go yet.

I love you Pat. You are my heart.

Tired Sunday

I am not going to write much. Some great news, brother Barry is home from the hospital after a two week stay, a week in ICU. Not so great news is that his diabetes has progressed from oral medication to 55 units of insulin a day. He is also on heparin because of his atrial fibrillation, which he no longer has since he was cardioverted but he will be on the heparin for awhile as prophylaxis. He is on three inhalers for his lungs, and a multitude of other medications, but he is definitely glad to be home in his own house, in his own bed. I sent him a ham for Christmas but he never got to taste it before he got sick. He was talking all the time in the hospital about how he was going to fix it. Hospital food...well, you know. I am grate for the prayers of my friends and family. Barry was sufficiently scared enough to not wait so long if he gets sick again. Like the rest of my family, we were raised to not complain and never get sick. It stood us well at one point in our lives, but not now, not at this age.

We had after Christmas get together at Rodger's sisters. I really like her, but can't say that I care for some of the other people in the family. Lots of negative things said about other people in the family, leading me to believe that the minute we left, our names were bandied about. Not a good feeling. It's too bad, because I really do like his sister. Ah, well, families. What can I say.