Prayer Request and Praise Report

A reader writes:

Your prayers are needed for a 22 yo young man who went to high school with my son. He has made 2 attempts on his own life and is currently hospitalized.

Please also hold up his parents and entire medical team for wisdom, right judgement and strength.

This will be a long battle and he needs our help.

Thank you so much!

Father, hear our prayer for his complete healing in body, soul, and spirit.  Give his caregivers grace, compassion, wisdom, counsel, knowledge, understanding, skill, creativity, insight, and the proper technology to assist in that healing and give him and all who love him grace, peace, consolation, strength, faith, hope, and love.  Mother Mary, St. Luke, St. Dymphna, and G.K. Chesterton, pray for him.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Another reader writes:

I want to thank you and your readers for responding to my request for prayers for my arm surgery on Oct 22. I believe your prayers saved me from an outcome much more dire than even I could have feared. Here’s the story:

After the operation, they kept me a night in the hospital and sent me home in my new sling on the afternoon of the 23rd. Mom gave me first of the oxycodone pills the doctor had prescribed for pain around 6 p.m. and went to prepare dinner. When she came to call me to eat, she found me asleep in the recliner in the family room. She let me be, thinking I must be needing rest. At bedtime, she covered me up when she couldn’t rouse me. Finally when she was unable to wake me the next morning (Sat.), she called for an ambulance.

The doctors say that I must have developed a severe bacterial infection during my first hospital stay because it was raging when I was admitted the second time. It had probably reached my bloodstream, causing my kidneys to shut down. It’s not too clear what part the oxycodone played, but a bad reaction to it could have aided in sending me into a coma. At any rate, the doctors have warned me not to take it again.

I eventually regained consciousness in the hospital late on Sunday, after they had given me kidney dialysis. I had to have it three times in all. I had a lot of poisons in my system. I couldn’t keep solid food down for days. Finally I turned a corner, and after I was able to start eating, I recovered rapidly. I was released from the hospital yesterday. My kidneys have returned to normal function, thanks be to God! I still have to wait 4-5 more weeks to find out how my arm will function. Thanks to all of you! And if you will, please pray I will find the means to pay for all the great care I received. My simple broken arm may end up costing me $100,000 or more.

(On a more fun note, I also want to say that I enjoyed your article on the history of Halloween. My sister Erin and her husband Patrick are real aficionados of the holiday. Accordingly, they went all out to give their beautiful little dark-eyed daughter Tess, born August 12, her first real all-American Halloween. While she clearly didn’t relish her first encounter with “pumpkin guts,” as Patrick puts it, she did like her skeleton costume, and especially cuddling with Grandma and Grandpa while Mom and Dad were at a Halloween party.. The “pumpkin guts” picture gave me a big laugh in the hospital when I really needed it. I thought you might it it too).

I post this for two reasons: To thank God the Father for hearing our prayers for her though Jesus Christ–and to thank you guys for praying so faithfully for all the folks who write in asking for prayers.  You really make a difference and I thank God for you guys.