[Magdalen] Prayers please...

[Grace Cangialosi]

Thanks, Cady! 
After a long conversation with Alice’s older daughter this morning, we decided it would be better for me to go tomorrow. Alice is undergoing a tracheostomy and placement of a feeding tube this afternoon, neither of which she wanted, but the doctors want to give her a couple more weeks. And yes, she does have an advance directive...

Situations like this made me crazy when I was a hospital chaplain...


> On May 3, 2019, at 1:49 PM, cady soukup <cadyasoukup at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Grace,
> 
> Prayers for Alice, her family, her medical team, and you.
> 
> May you be provided with all you need.
> 
> Cady
> 
>> On 5/3/19, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Prayers for Alice. Echoing the advice to sing. Music reaches when nothing
>> else can. I have that on the experience of my late Israeli friend, who was
>> in a coma for several days following a massive reaction to pre-anesthetic
>> drugs. (Some of you may remember praying for him)
>> 
>> On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 10:55 PM Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Prayers rising for Alice here in Houston.
>>> Lynn
>>> 
>>> On May 2, 2019, at 6:02 PM, Judy Fleener <fleenerj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Praying For Alice.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>> On May 2, 2019, at 5:51 PM, Ginga Wilder <gingawilder at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Praying for Alice and her children and her friend Grace.  May God be
>>> merciful.
>>> 
>>> Ginga
>>> 
>>>> On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 6:21 PM Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> For Alice, my good friend of 46 years, who has not wakened from a
>>>> medically-induced coma after two weeks. She suffered a massive heart
>>> attack
>>>> April 18th, went from an urgent care clinic to the ER to the ICU. They
>>>> inserted a breathing tube and put her into a coma. She had severe
>>>> injury
>>> to
>>>> the mitral valve, and they hoped to stabilize her enough to replace it,
>>>> which they did last Thursday. But she still hasn’t wakened, and they
>>> don’t
>>>> know why. All tests have been negative. Her son sent an update today
>>>> suggesting that folks visit and talk to her; I’m going up tomorrow.
>>>> We’ve
>>>> known each other since our kids were in nursery school together; I
>>>> taught
>>>> piano to two of her kids and performed her second wedding and her
>>>> daughter’s (only) wedding.
>>>> She converted to Judaism after her second marriage, and I’m going to
>>>> contact a rabbi friend here to ask him for some appropriate
>>> transliterated
>>>> prayers and/or psalms to read to her.
>>>> 
>>>> A little while ago my daughter, who knows the situation and once dated
>>>> Alice’s oldest son, said, “I know this sounds terrible, but if it was
>>>> you...we’d be done!” It took me a minute to realize what she was
>>>> saying,
>>>> and then I said I agreed. In fact, I don’t think I would have opted for
>>> the
>>>> valve replacement at her age...she’s 79. Even if she does pull through,
>>> her
>>>> quality of life is likely to be very poor.
>>>> 
>>>> I feel for her kids having to deal with this. There are four of them,
>>>> and
>>>> her son said they met with the medical team this morning, and now it’s
>>> just
>>>> a waiting game. Their dad died a number of years ago.
>>>> I was a hospital chaplain for 8 years, but these situations are much
>>>> harder when they involve friends or family.
>>>> Thanks for listening—I didn’t mean to go on so long.
>>>> Grace
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>