Sunday started out being so much better than Saturday. The choir's music was 95% good, lots of love and Christmas cheer flowing freely through all the folks at church, I cooked after I got home, anticipating the arrival of Benji and Pip, singing Christmas tunes as I worked in the kitchen. Then my husband came in from his lunch with friends after having consumed too much wine. Staggering as only a crippled stroke patient can, with speech slurred and language too blue to repeat, he told me immediately that we were in for a rough night.

After he fell the first time, Benji managed to get him up. Around 6:30, he climbed the stairs, headed for bed, got to the top of the stairs and grabbed hold of a heavy, full-length mirror, pulled it down on top of him, and fell back down the stairs to the first landing. When Benji and I heard the noise, we rushed to him. The mirror was on top of him, his head had gone through the sheet rock in the wall, blood was gushing profusely, and I called 911. The ambulance got him to St. Dominic's ER by 7:00.

The prognosis is not good. He has brain bleeds on each side of his head, a huge gash above his left eye, his left kneecap is twice the size of the right one, and those were the only injuries they could detect last night. He claimed to be feeling no pain at all. The ER doctors did not think he would make it through the night. The neurosurgeon was a little more optimistic, but not much. They couldn't operate last night due to the blood thinner he takes and his blood alcohol level being too high.

I called his daughter and she and I went in to see him around 1 AM after they got him admitted to the neuro-ICU. Then the nurses told us to go home and wait for them to call before we came back. They still haven't called and it's 10:30 AM, so I'm headed back to the hospital. I have my cell phone and his with me, if you want to call, 601-946-2454 and 601-260-8851. There's not anything anyone can do now but pray.

Lord, have mercy.

Update: For those of you who have expressed concern that Pip witnessed any of this, let me assure you - HE DIDN'T!! Thank God, for TNT and Wizard of Oz. He was totally mesmerized in the backroom by the movie, didn't even come out when the firetruck and ambulance came. The damage to the carpet and the wall have been camouflaged by towels and a "Little Mermaid" poster over the hole in the sheetrock.