Jordan's health has improved. She was eating dry cereal with milk earlier and also taking some other liquids. Michael, Patricia, and Walker have arrived from Houston. They will be attending the wedding while we sit with Jordan. The plan is for us to stay with her until the wedding ends. If she feels OK, we will take her to the church for photos then return to the Morris home with her. Hope it works out that way.

A trip to Dallas for a wedding turned into a nightmare--not necessarily for us but for one of our grandchildren.

We drove up from Houston yesterday morning. The plan was for Ellie and me to care for Jordan, the 16 month old while everyone else enjoyed the rehearsal dinner. Everyone left around 4:30 for the church, leaving Jordan with us. Rebecca told us she had been fussy all day but she seemed OK when they left.

Jordan likes chicken strips so I made a quick trip to a local Sonic drive-in, picked up a couple of chicken strip dinners and came back to George and Linda's house. That's when thing started going wrong.

Jordan would not eat dinner and would not drink any liquids. I felt her forehead a couple of times and she seemed warm. By the time we finished dinner she was blazing hot. Ellie and I took her upstairs, gave her a cool water bath and some Tylenol then put her to bed. Before putting her to bed, I checked her temperature with an ear thermometer and it was 102.3 degrees.

After putting her to bed, we went downstairs, checking on her every 15 minutes of so. Strangely enough even though she appeared dead tired, she would not go to sleep. She just lay in her bed, tossing back and forth, with her eyes wide open. After a couple of hours we decided to get her up. As Ellie sat rocking her she appeared completely out of it. She lay there, limp and almost lifeless. I gave her another dose of Tylenol but that didn't seem to help.

Meanwhile I had called Rebecca on her cell phone. She decided to drive home from the rehearsal dinner to check on Haley. But in the interim, I decided that Jordan was just too hot so we put her in another cool water bath. I was actually glad to here her start crying because she didn't seem to have much response before then.

Within about 20 minutes Rebecca arrived. Rebecca thought it might be strep throat so after some discussion, we decided to take her to an urgent care clinic. We set out for one not far from the Morris house but when we arrived, it was closed. We then made the decision that should have been made first--take her to an emergency room.

We drove to Presbyterian Hospital on Walnut Hill expecting a 4 hour wait before even getting in to see a doctor. Much to our surprise, they took her into triage within about 10 minutes. The triage nurse checked her temperature at 103.5. I had dosed her with Tylenol about an hour earlier so it had to have been over 104 when we left the house.

The triage nurse dosed her with Motrin, a horrifying thing to watch because she was forcing liquid medication down her throat while the child was screaming at the top of her lungs. I was sure she would strangle on the liquid but somehow the nurse got it in her.

We then went to the urgent care center and into a standard ER hospital room. Within minutes we had a visit from a nurse and within 15 minutes a doctor was there--a record for expediency in my opinion.

After examining her, the doctor decided she would need a battery of tests: throat culture, Chest x-ray, blood count, urinealysis, and culture growth. Drawing blood and urine from a 16 month old child is traumatic to say the least. It took them at least 20 minutes to insert a catheter, get the urine, and insert a hep lock with Jordan screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time.

We were told the tests would take an hour or hour and a half. They were back within about 45 minutes. All the tests looked normal but the doctor said he saw something as he put it "not quite right" on the chest x-ray. No explanation other than the potential for pneumonia. The decision was made to give her antibiotics. To do this, we had to move to another part of the ER. They took us in right away and within a few minutes a nurse had started a drip line.

The antibiotic drip took about 30 minutes to finish and, after some wrangling with the admitting people, we left the hospital. The time was 2:30 a.m. and we had been there for 5 hours. Not bad I suppose for the work done on her since the average time in an ER is 4 hours.

By the time we got Jordan and Rebecca back to the Morris house and we drove to the hotel, it was 3:00 a.m. We crawled in bed and passed out until daylight through the drapes woke us up around 8:30.

Jordan is doing better this morning but not eating or drinking much. She needs to be hydrated because it's been about 18 hours since she's had substantial liquid. Hopefully she will get back in the groove today.

Looks like we won't be going to the wedding and that's OK with me. We don't mind taking care of her and would do it again in a heartbeat.

John Kerry's remark about Dick Cheney's daughter during the last debate is generating a huge backlash. Of course the Dimocrats think she's fair game. Everything's fair in love and war. And politics, too, if you're Senator Kerry.

Light rain overnight, clearing later in the day, cool north wind, beautiful sky. It's October in Texas and I missed the best day of the year sitting in a doctor's office.

My annual cardiac stress test (which I skipped last year) turned into an all day affair. I was at the hospital at 8:00 a.m. for X-rays, in the doctors office by 9:00, in the test area by 10:00, ran the treadmill at 10:30, then spent the rest of the day waiting for the doctor to see me. I left his office at 5:15 p.m.

I guess my time is worthless.

The Third Debate

I can't tell who "won" this one. Kerry was in his usual form: wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. Bush spent too much time talking about education reform. Kerry was a big loser when asked how his wife and family affected his life. He spent more time talking about his mother than Theresa. He'll probably regret that for the rest of his life.

In another prime example of how low the Dimocrats will stoop, John Edwards uses Christopher Reeve's death as an election tool. Bill Frist has a few things to say about his scurrilous actions.

Was John Kerry dishonorably discharged from the Navy? This New York Sun article seems to point in that direction. Mr. Kerry could put all this to rest by signing form 180 to release his records. But of course, it's too near the election to get that ball rolling.

This looks a lot like Dimocrat scare tactics.

October is the best month of the year. Warm days in the low 80s and cool nights. Supposed to last through the weekend with even cooler temps. This makes up for all the scorchers we have in July.

Another indictment of Koffi Anan and, for that matter, the entire United Nations which by the way as a world body is finished.

Spent last evening with the FS-102. What a fine piece of optical equipment this thing is. There's nothing like the view through a first class refractor. I decided to not take the time to set up for video imaging. I worked instead on some of the brighter Caldwell objects. It's amazing how well planetary nebulae punch through the light pollution. I was able to observe even the tiny dim ones without either a UHC or OIII filter. More tonight I hope.

A double standard for Dimocrats and John Kerry when it comes to separation of church and state. Hindrocket says so and he's right.

World's biggest cockroach found in Beaumont, Texas school classroom.

One of the people I admire the most has died. After a riding accident that turned him into a paraplegic, Christopher Reeve could have become bitter and resentful. But rather than turn inward, he put his efforts into trying to find a cure for spinal cord injuries. Christopher Reeve personified the word Superman.

How Many?

According to the World Health Organization, between 6,000 and 10,000 people are dying each month from disease and malnutrition in the camps. The United States is making the crisis in Darfur one of its top priorities on the African continent. Natsios said USAID has three major reconstruction projects underway ? Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Too bad these unfortunates can't offer oil vouchers to UN diplomats.