Laynes' Line

     Welcome to our niche in the world. One week ago today, we had another accident in front of our house on the main highway into town. The second vehicle spun and hit a power pole made of reinforced concrete with a hollow center. The pickup truck shredded the concrete from ground level to about six feet up. The pole dropped the six feet, touched the truck with the electrical wires and caused a huge ball of fire from the wires to the truck, snapped the telephone wires and the cable wire as well as those support wires which hold all of that up. Fortunately, every one walked away from it with nothing more than being shaken up. HOWEVER, it took until late Saturday before the power was reinstated, which also means no water (water pump).      Since last Friday we have had no contact with the outside world either by phone or by Internet since our Internet comes by phone line. I have paced the property waiting to hear or see the repairmen to make sure t...

     I want to keep everyone updated, but I don't want to be a bother. Everything is going well according to the doctor, and he is more than pleased. He has removed all restrictions concerning activities and diet, so I am on the mend. At the most, this has been an inconvenience with minor repercussions. It was bothersome for the first week, and I still have a few sore places to date, but considering what they would have done just a few years ago, this is nothing. The only "problem" I have had has been snapping back to normal. Six days after surgery, I developed the beginnings of an nasal infection which threw me for a loop. As the doctor checked me in the other day, he asked if I had been taking the antibiotic. I answered "Yes" and Cheyenne answered "No." Come to find out, when she called him, he was leaving town, so they were unable to meet to get the prescription (no, the doctor cannot just call the pharmacy). He told Cheyenne to put me on a medicine...

     Thank you all so much for praying. The weekend went well with few uncomfortable events. The surgery basically felt as though I bit my tongue in several places at the same time and had a sore throat. It was actually a probe that was inserted and then charged with radio frequency to vaporize the various sections of my tongue, palate and a few other parts. I apologize for several errors in the update on Thursday, but everyone was so kind as to not mention them. The deviated was not the palate but rather the septum. It appears everyone read past the mistakes and realized I had just arrived home. We have worked diligently with the many canker sores and they are slowly disappearing.      Today was my first post-op doctor visit and he was happy with the results. When asked his opinion about the progress he simply stated, "Well, very well." I do not return for 10 days which says a lot. He had predicted that I would probably need to return in two days...

Dear Praying Friends,      Thank you so much for your prayers. It took about an hour for the surgery and everything, including the outcome, appears to be a great success. yesterday, we went into town for the final pre-op appointment so we stayed with Cheyenne. At that office visit, the doctor explained some of the procedures to greater detail and questioned Ann at length. He explained that the radio frequency would NOT be used to cut, but rather was inserted like a needle which would vaporize a  hole inside the area. As that area heals, it will shrink because of less material inside. He reduced the soft palate, the area around the uvula, the back of the tongue, opened the passages in the nose and straightened a deviated palate. His record of success in these cases is 85%. He told me HIS expectation for the surgery was to remove one and possibly reduce the second medicine I take for high blood pressure. He feels that we have wrongly assumed that my problem was h...

Monday, March 26, 2012 Dear Praying Friends,       I have an unusual request for prayer today. I (Gary) am scheduled for surgery on Thursday at 8:00 AM. Unusual ?? Yes, two ways. I have only had one surgery, for my gall bladder removal in 2008. I am not one who searches for the opportunity. Secondly, the whole circumstance around the surgery is unusual . Several of my family members have asked at varying intervals, "When are you going to have the doctor check out your snoring/breathing?" When I had the incident last February with the lungs, it was brought up again. So, I asked my cardiologist for a recommendation concerning my sleep problems. I went to the doctor who checked me out physically (ears, nose, throat) and suggested a sleep test. No surprise there. However, I agreed so I could see him tell me that my problem was so minor I need not apply even for a CPAP. I took the test, eight and one half hours of being wired to the machine, but at least in th...

     WOW. Where do I begin? Yesterday appeared to be a regular day with a normal day's activities. A little before Noon I met a friend for lunch and a chance to run some errands. Traffic was heavy because it was Friday but everything else seemed normal. We left the plaza and my friend insisted he would take me all the way home (about 20 miles); I noticed a column of black smoke off in the distance and commented, "Something's on fire." I kept telling him to just drop me off at any of the bus stops and I could hop a bus home. As we neared the half-way mark, traffic began to stop completely. I again begged him to drop me off and he finally agreed (he had previous engagements that he needed to make).      I boarded a bus within four or five minutes but we could see that basically no one was going anywhere. Suddenly the traffic started moving again and I realized we were crossing the median to run down the other side of the highway. It is a limited acc...

February, 2012 3 O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. Psalm 34:3 Dear Praying Friends,       God, as always, has been blessing His Word. Fernando has been doing a good job of declaring the truth faithfully and it is having effect in people’s lives. We are seeing several of the deaf make their way back as they see the church is carrying on in the work of the Lord. It has been slow during the holidays but we praise the Lord for 38 for our Valentine’s Day. One deaf man who got saved last year is becoming faithful after being a strong opponent in the beginning. It is wonderful to watch the Lord work and allow us to be a part of it.     We made a border trip and returned on the 7 th of February. On the 8 th the headlines in the US news was a massive bust of meth here. They reported it as being near Guadalajara. When I read another report it stated a town nearby. When I read the account in our local paper, it was within...