Dear friends:

As you probably know, reunions are fun to me and I treasure them. I could not wait for our 50th and wouldn't miss it for anything. Then "this year" happened. My Dave had a small heart attack in Feb. but that was the beginning only.......they put him on a a med that we all thought caused her hemoglobin to fall........as a few weeks later he was rushed to the hospital and admitted with a hgb of 7 (normal is 12-16 for a man).

Even now it is only 10. He had 4 transfusions and tons of tests. They thought it was the medication so sent him home with nothing more but Iron to add to his list of meds. Then he began failing again and collapsed at home.........called 911 and same song and dance. This time they did a colonoscopy (they didn't' do one before because he had one recently and was to weak to go thru it). They found polyps and a leaking spot which they fixed. 4 more blood transfusions later he came home. In between all of this they made him aware of a 1-2 cm. spot on his lung that was found. He had Pet scan and then biopsy. Was cancer. He was unable to have surgery so they did radiation. He has COPD and is on oxygen. He is home and doing much better. We could not imagine going to FL for the reunion. We let Allan know.

Things are still up in the air about it. Neither of us are well at all. I think he could handle the reunion by then but the trip to Lakeland (we live in upstate SC near the NC border........closer to Brevard) would be quite a taxing event for him. We did it 18 months ago and it was hard on both of us then as my back doesn't do well to travel.

So I wanted to tell you all that the Reunion I so looked forward to, has become less and less important to me as priorities have changed tremendously. Our plans are to sell this retirement home we built 10 years ago and go back to Lakeland to be near our 2 children and 7 grandchildren. God knows our future.......

So I wanted to tell you I do care about all of you and truly hope the turnout is good, the food is delicious but most of all that the fellowship is unforgetable. Because we probably won't be there..............have a great time!

Arlene Sheridan Jones

Allan, you are a dear to post this. You also have my permission to EDIT it.....for example the her intead of his in the first of the letter lol.
I did not send in money for a BOOK and I am devastated. I need to find out where andd take a chance and send it anyway.
I am so in outter space with all this going on..........I missed the instructions (correctly reading them):o