Chilling with Fr. Eddie

This afternoon I returned home.  Feels so good to be back.  I picked up Gigi and she was so crazy excited to see me again.  She was straining against her leash as the vet tech brought her out to me.  She then kept walking in circles around me and her tail was flying.  I'll let her get settled in tonight then pick up the other two tomorrow some time. Health wise, I continue to feel better and my strength is returning.  Now that I am home, I have to force myself to take it easy this week as I heal up.  Next week, Gigi will start walking me again and I will work on more house projects. The nasty bruise on my arm is still there, but seems to get better every day.  Thankfully it doesn't hurt.  But is sure cool to show others. Yesterday as I was celebrating Mass in the chapel at STM, the second reading really hit me: "Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day...

Today was much better.  I regained my appetite and ability to keep food down and am finally getting some good sleep.  Oxy makes me incredibly itchy and that kept me up much of last night.  Today I decided to get off of that med and my body crashed a few times into much needed sleep. Jim and I will be headed back up north tomorrow and I will spend the weekend at St. Thomas More.  Monday I will be back in C'ville for a Parish Council Meeting that night. This trip has sure been crazy, painful and frustrating but at least I am pulling through and even though there is a long journey ahead, at least I know the next steps to take to hopefully figure out what is wrong so it can be addressed and I finally get healed. This picture is the result of a nurse who "has a high success rate in getting the vein on the first stick".  I would sure hate to end up with the nurse who has a low success rate. Thanks for reading this blog.  I will try to do a better job k...

Thank you all for all of your prayers and texts.  They all mean a lot to me.  Here is a blow by blow detailed summary of yesterday's surgery. I started my total fast at 11:45 pm Monday night.  At 6:45am I did some nasty and unpleasant prep.  We checked in at 9:30 am.  I had to wait in the family waiting room until 2:30pm.  That got to be brutal for me.  The worse position for me is sitting up right.  Even with the doughnut, it is painful. At about 2:30pm I got called in to get ready for the surgery.  Part of the fun is getting an IV. This nurse was very nice and compassionate and she assured me of her high success rate in getting a good stick the first time.  Well...... take a wild guess as to what happened.  Yep, got into the vein ok, but it collapsed on her and she had to keep poking until having to give up on that one and pull out.  She then went to my left arm by my elbow, inside of the arm (rub that spot and see how se...

I had the consultation apt this morning to see how the fistula was healing up and if I was ready for the big surgery to correct it.  Well..... you know the swelling that I was concerned about that I mentioned in the last entry?  Unfortunately, that is a big deal.  It is another abscess on the other side.  I will have surgery tomorrow afternoon to get that dealt with.  The surgeons won't know what they will do until they cut me open.  So maybe it will be another string. I asked if they could do the fistula surgery at the same time.  Doc said that they can't do that surgery until I am all healed up because they don't want to risk having the infection from the new abscess to mess up the other fistula. Also, the doc is very concerned about me now having 3 abscesses in the same area.  Usually it is just one, it is treated and that is the end of it.  He said that either I am having a string of very bad luck or there is something more serious ca...

In honor of today's feast of Corpus Christi. Enjoy!

Hi Everyone, Sorry it has been forever since I last blogged.  Life got very weird and crazy busy the last 6 weeks.  I'll spare you all the details.  But basically, Dr. Force encouraged me to get active again and Dr. Crooms up in Tally told me I can do pretty much anything that I am comfortable doing.  So, I got back into full time ministry, started exercising again and have been working on the house. It has been so good to be back as a pastor of my two beautiful parishes.  I missed my people sooooo much.  To be able to be the celebrant at the Masses was awesome!  I was also able to visit a few people in the hospital and nursing home.  People have no idea of how hard it is as a priest to not be able to do priestly things.  Priesthood isn't a job or something I do, it is who I am.  And to finally be able to live this out again is beyond words of how good it has felt. Being able to exercise has also been a big help.  At first it w...