Aunts' health

The health of two of my aunts has taken a turn for the worse. Very serious health problems had already plagued Aunt June (pictured above at the December 2008 family Christmas party in Marysville, Ohio), my mother’s half-sister (the youngest of Grandma Beck’s children). In the past week or so she learned that she has throat cancer (Stage 4). June apparently has genetic abnormalities that make her veins and arteries very narrow and make her body rejected transplants and any inserted items. For this reason, she is a very unlikely surgery candidate. She goes to the doctor next Monday to find out what options she has. June is a widow whose disabled son died some 10 years ago. Sister Barb currently lives with her. Daughter Diana (pictured below with husband Jay) and her family live 10 miles away, and son Dustin (pictured further below) lives 25 miles away.

Another widow, Aunt Songza, the middle of my father's three sisters, has a condo in Seoul, South Korea. She was visiting Seoul and walking down the street several weeks ago and a car hit her (much like me in NYC 15 years ago) (Seoul city street pictured below). Like Natasha Richardson last month, Songza thought she was OK. After a longer period than Richardson, Songza began to experience terrible headaches and went to the hospital, where they found she had swelling on the brain. They drilled small holes in her head and drained the hematoma. One of her daughters, Cathy, who I’ve visited in New Jersey, has flown in, and she is apparently recovering OK.

June is only 3 ½ hours away in Ohio, and so we may see her soon. I saw her twice in late 2008, once in the hospital. To my discredit, I have not seen Songza for some 10 years, but I will try e-mailing her (as at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, there is wi-fi, I’m told, in the hospital, in Seoul). If you pray, you might pray for these two women, with apparently different prognoses, and their families. And for Stephanie’s mother, stepbrother, and grandmother, and for my grandfather, all ailing.

-- Perry