thank you, i love you all, and i will beat you with my cane

i cannot thank you all enough for your prayers, thoughts, love, and support.  anaphylactic reactions and severe asthma are unfortunately a daily reality for my family.  it's beyond terrifying, so your prayers and words of comfort mean so much to me.  the one good thing that can come out of my mom's health situation are medical journal articles and studies bringing about awareness.  her case is such a rarity (only one other person in the u.s. has food allergies as severe as hers), making sure it is documented and studied is important.  my mom and i were released from the hospital late last night with lots of breathing machines and steroids, and now she's home and doing well.  my dad also came home from europe last night, so he was able to stay home from work today and be with her.  that means i'm back in the office.  ugh.

i seriously have so much blogging material from our hospital slumber party that i'll have to share with you later.  (i've got a crapton of work to catch up on.  i was working from the hospital on my phone and laptop as much as i could.)  just to give you a little preview of stories to come: 85 year old woman with a walker begins wielding it as a weapon on the male nurses.  i promise you, it's funny stuff.

and just to share a little family tidbit with you all: as of this past sunday, my little brother is officially legal and he's all grown up! it's still so weird to me that in a few short months he'll be leaving for college. my family and i live in the same city and are extremely close; his leaving will especially affect our 11 year old sister who calls her big brother her "best friend." here's one of the pics (we are doing some serious squinting in the sun) we took at the sunday lunch celebration after church (sans pops who was still in europe thanks to the volcano spewing ash all over the place):

my momma with her three babies