I got back in the U.S.A. late last night and was greeted by a snowstorm on my arrival! Terri picked me up at the airport and we were extra careful in getting home because of the slippery roads. Cars were spun off everywhere.

Beverly has been faithfully sending updates on Corrine's son Isaiah, and here are the most recent ones in the order I received them:

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Thursday 4-28 9:22 a.m. "Isaiah, Corrine (Kotch) Musto's son is still in a coma, the doctors are now saying it is a trauma-induced coma and they are waiting for him to come out of it. He is still sedated and on a respirator. He has 2 bruises/blood clots on his brain and 1 on his lung. The other night he had a very high fever and they had to pack him in ice. Corrine and Joe, her husband, stayed with Isaiah for over 48hrs. straight without leaving him. This is very hard on them as any parent can understand when it is your child. Please pray for him and his family. Isaiah is at CMC in Scranton in the critical care unit."

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Friday 4-29 6:51 a.m. "Dear Friends,
Below is Isaiah Musto's address if anyone would like to send him a card. I'm sure it will mean a lot to Isaiah when he comes out of the coma and it will also bring comfort to Corrine and Joe, his parents. Thank you so much for taking this young person to the throne of Jesus for Isaiah's healing. God is working those miracles in him! Keep praying!

Love and God Bless each and everyone of you for your faith!
Beverly

Isaiah Musto
Community Medical Center
1800 Mulberry St
Scranton, PA 18510

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Friday 4-29 8:08 a.m. "Dear Lee,
This is a update that I received from Corrine (Kotch) Musto. Thank you for adding these to the BOR site. Corrine is touched beyond words that so many people are praying for her son, Isaiah. Thank you for doing this for her! Beverly


Isaiah is still on sedation and still in the coma. He
has a mild fever. At 4:00 a.m. Thurs. morning they
took him off the sedation for a short time to see how
he is coming out of the coma. With Joe present, the
nurse asked him to wiggle his toes, squeeze his hand
and give a thumbs up. He did all three, with both
hands giving a thumbs up! He is starting to come out
of the coma. The doc hopes to be able to have him off
of the ventilator within the next few days.

Grateful beyond words,
Corinne"

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I apologize for putting all these updates together instead of adding them as they come in, but Bev has been faithfully sending them to me for the weblog and I've been pretty busy over here in Taiwan. To complicate matters, Hotmail was putting them in my bulk mail folder. You can read them in reverse chronological order. Things are looking promising, but please keep praying... -Lee

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Tuesday evening update:

Here is an update from Isaiah's friend:

I just went to see Isaiah a couple hours ago. He is still heavily medicated and he had a really high fever. to the point of where they packed him with ice. I touched his hand and he was so hot. It seemed like his whole body was swollen. They gave him more medication for his fever on top of the medication for sleeping. You could hear him breathing, with the respirator that he still is on; except with a lower number. But in all he is doing much better than yesterday, at least that is what his uncle told me. Mr and Mrs Musto left tonight for the first night. Mr Musto has been there for 48 hours straight and he looked exhausted. They couldn't be more thankful for all the people praying for Isaiah.


Please continue to take Isaiah to the throne of Jesus for healing and strength for his mother and father.

Love and God Bless,
Beverly

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Monday late morning update:

Isaiah the Lord says to you, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jerm29:11


Isaiah is doing better than expected. The latest CAT scan showed a bruise on his brain, no blood clot or hematoma. He is still highly medicated, and restrained to keep him still. The doctors have him on a respirator as well. They may decide later today to allow him to wake up and move about.
Pray for continued healing!
They also need to determine who was at fault for the accident, Isaiah or the other driver. Thankfully, the other driver did call 911 so Isaiah was able to receive medical treatment right away. The friend that was a passenger in Isaiah's car was treated and released the same day.

God bless you.

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Monday Morning 7:00 a.m. Update:

Below is a copy of an e-mail updating Isaiah Musto's condition

Dear Faithful Intercessors,

Isaiah, the Lord says to you, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jerm. 29:11

The last thing I heard about Isaiah was that the coma is induced (he kept trying to get up so they sedated him even more) so he cannot move, because of the blood clots. The Dr. said that he is not in immediate danger. PTL! He is responding by squeezing his family's hands.

Please continue to pray that the blood clots (one on back of his head and one in his lung) will dissolve very quickly without needing surgery, in Jesus Name, Amen!

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Sunday evening update:

Dear Friends,
Below is another update I received from Judy Jordan at Back Mountain Harvest Assembly about Isaiah Musto, son of Corrine (Kotch) Musto.

Continue praying!
Beverly


Isaiah, the Lord says to you, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jerm. 29:11



He's doing much better. Pastor Linda just left the hospital. She said that he is breathing on his own, but he has a trachea in. and he is trying to move but the doctors don't want him to so they sedated him more. besides having a bruise on his neck he has no other cuts or bruises. from many stories the one that remains a constant is he was turning out of an intersection, (Carverton Road onto the CrossValley?) and he was looking down at his cell phone and a pick up truck with a plow ran right into the drivers side. there was a passenger with him, Tim; but he just went to the hospital to get a check up and then went home. continue to keep him in serious prayer. even though he is in stable condition as of right now. pray that the tests will come back clear and fast. keep the rest of the Musto's in prayer but also all of the youth that it's affecting. i know a lot of my friends are taking it really hard.

I don't want to take any attention away from the news of Corrine's son who needs our prayers (see yesterday's posting) and I will follow up when I get more information from Beverly, but I just got some more news that will be of interest to a few of you reading the blog.

I just found out from Joe Petrasek that one of our classmates from St. John's passed away a few weeks ago. Many people from our O'Reilly class may not know Conrad Walko, but for the benefit of those who went to St. John's or Sacred Heart, I figured I would post this information to the weblog. Here's the message Joe sent me:

..."I just found out that Conrad Walko passed away about 2 weeks ago. I found out through Rick Sendrick, Rose's twin brother.

Rick was good friends with Conrad and tried to keep in touch. Someone at
the hockey rink told Rick about Conrad. Rick called his mom and she told
Rick that Conrad was in to help her with some things around the house.
Conrad finished cutting the grass and came in the house and told his mother
that he didn't feel good. Conrad put his head down on the kitchen table and
passed away."

I assume it must have been a heart attack. I found the following obituary on-line in the the Citizens Voice.

"Conrad Francis Walko, 45, of Orlando, Fla., passed away Wednesday (April 6th).

He was born on April 28, 1959, in Kingston, son of Nancy Karmilowicz Walko and the late Conrad Walko. He was a new car manager in the automotive industry. He was Catholic.
Conrad was a wonderful son, father and caring brother. He worked very hard for his family. His free time was spent coaching various sports activities for his two sons, as well as riding dirt bikes with them. He was an avid NASCAR fan.
Surviving in addition to his mother, are sons, Conrad Lawrence and Tyler Joseph Walko, both of Altamonte Springs, Fla.; longtime companion, Gina Bonacchi and her daughters, Alexis and Arianna, all of Orlando, Fla.; brothers, David Brandon Walko, Maine; Christopher Walko, Washington.
A graveside service will be held Wednesday at 10 in St. Mary's of the Annunciation Cemetery, Pringle. Arrangements are by Betz-Jastremski Funeral Home Inc., Luzerne."

There is a picture of Conrad on the 1973 St. John's graduation photo. He's in the 4th row on the far right. I also noticed that Jack Kamus who passed away in 2003 is on the far left of the same row. It's really sad when we lose good people like this at such a young age. I lost contact with Conrad after we graduated from St. John's. I think he went to Wyoming Valley West, but I don't know for sure. I still have a lot of fond memories of him, and have a set of faint scars on my fingers that got caught between the soles of his shoes and the hard surface of St. John's playground while he was sliding into home. I recall how apologetic he was about it, even though it was an accident and not his fault.

Hello everyone, I'm in Taiwan right now, having just arrived here this morning (Sunday night for you) and was checking my email and just found this urgent request from Beverly (Yakus) Cottle.

"Dear Lee, Corrine Kotch Musto's 16 yr. old son was just in a severe car accident. His name is Isaiah, he just got his license. This is Corrine's youngest child of 3, she has a daughter, Leah 21, a son, Jesse 18. Isaiah was life flighted to CMC in Scranton. He was hit broadside on the drivers side. As of tonight, Sunday, he is still unconcious, he has a blood clot on his brain and damage to his lungs. Can you please add this to the blog (I read it often) Please, please ask everyone to pray for Isaiah for healing. He is a sophomore at Wyoming Valley West. Please also ask everyone to keep Corrine and her husband and children lifted to the throne of Jesus as well to give them strength. Thank you so much, Lee for doing this for Corrine and her son."

Please remember to keep Corrine and her family in your prayers. If you would like to contact Beverly, please email me for her phone number.

One of the things I've wanted to mention on the blog is the new show on NBC called 'The Office'. It shows on Tuesday nights at 9:30 ET. The show is set in Scranton, PA and is a comedy based on a similar show on the BBC. I've seen a few episodes but, so far, it's not very funny. This is a bit of a disappointment to me, of course, because I like shows that are set in 'unique' locations and Scranton, with its Wyoming Valley influence, would certainly qualify as such. :-) I keep hoping for someone with a Nanticoke accent to appear, and say 'haina?' at the end of a sentence. 'Haina' is valley-speak for "Isn't it?", or "Don't you agree?" I mention that for the benefit of those who stumble across this blog that are from somewhere other than the Valley. Graduates of Bishop O'Reilly already know the word haina and its meaning. Maybe if they have a Halloween episode where the kids have to actually sing for their treats, or an episode where they go to a Church bazarre and eat halushka, or add an 'honest-to-goodness' valley bar as another setting (someplace like Sid's :-), it will be more believable that it's set in Scranton.

The show is very quirky and perhaps it will pick up a following and thus put the Valley on the map of 'must visit' places, sort of like Twin Peaks did for Snoqualmie Falls or Northern Exposure did for Roslyn, WA.

With the abundance of reality-based TV shows that are popular now (Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, The Amazing Race, etc.), I was hoping for the next sitcom that was as new and quirky as Seinfeld was when it appeared in 1992. If this is it, it's off to a slow start, although the critics seem to love it. Maybe it will grow on me.

It was about 65 degrees yesterday and sunny here in Colorado... T-shirt weather... Today there is a blizzard in progress with the temperatures hovering around freezing and the wind gusting to 45 mph. The visibility is nearly zero. They are calling for snow accumulations of nearly a foot down on the front range and up to 30 inches in some areas. Denver International airport is closed. In other words, we are having typical spring weather conditions here in Colorado ;-). It may not get back up into the 60's until Wednesday.

Since flying is out of the question, I took the opportunity to do a little work on our blogger template. I'm not real crazy about the colors, but it feels good to change it around every now and again just to get your attention. I wanted to use a little blue and gold in honor of our Bishop O'Reilly colors. Check out Bishop O'Reilly's main website and you'll see they use those colors a lot. I did take some of the olive green out of the template and substituted some blue for it. I also replaced some orange color with gold and it looks a little better. Oh well, it's something different.

I also added links to make syndication easier. Syndication is a technique to allow you to subscribe to an information feed using various news aggregators so you'll know when new content arrives without having to go check for it. I blogged about it a little earlier here. If you look on the right hand side, I've put in links to make those of you who use Bloglines and My Yahoo as ways of subscribing to feeds easier. I use NewsGator myself and to use that, you can just right click on the XML link and 'copy shortcut' and then paste that into the aggregator.

I changed the headliners on the main reunion page to the Gate of Heaven (1973) images of Kevin Borton and Bee Harris. These two are people whose email addresses no longer work. If anyone knows their new email addresses, please let me know.

I was back in the valley last week for my nephew's confirmation and I blogged about it here. John Nardone and I took a flight over Wyoming Valley and so I thought I'd include this aerial view of the Valley from pretty high up. Click on the image for a larger one. You can see Harvey's Lake in the left hand side and the Susquehanna River is plainly visible where it enters and exits the Valley. We flew over the back mountain, Harvey's Lake and up the Susquehanna to Towanda. Then we flew back down and I got some pictures, but unfortunately, I left my digital camera at Terri's sister's house so I won't be able to post them until she sends it to me.

We spent some time in Sid's on Slocum Street talking with my friend Dave Barilla. You'll see his name is all over the place in the west side of the valley because he's running for District Judge for Swoyersville, Luzerne, Pringle, Courtdale, Edwardsville and Forty Fort. Please make sure to vote for him in the upcoming primary on May 7th. I can pretty much guarantee that if you run any red lights in Swoyersville, he can take care of the ticket for you. :-)