I did not post anything here between late May and July 10. The last post in May discussed the RIAA's use of colleges and universities as their copyright enforcers. I wrote that post in a hospital room as my wife slept after being admitted in the early afternoon. More than ever she needed an advocate as I witnessed errors by the nursing staff, errors with her and also with another patient. These things mattered a great deal. Dealing with bureaucratic bungling kept me at the hospital till midnight one night; I was unwilling to leave until I knew the staff had corrected the problem. Family mattered a great deal for the nine days she was in the hospital.

Eight days after coming home, she was back in the hospital. Two days later she had some serious surgery, an option that had been held as a last resort since mid-March. Family mattered then, too. Our son and his girlfriend were with my wife and me when she went into surgery and when she came out of recovery. We are very optimistic, even on the brink of being confident, that she has finally turned the corner in this long illness that has sapped her of her strength, necessitated daily injections, and been very scary at times. Family mattered five days after she had surgery and our older daughter came to care for her mother. We had we made plans weeks earlier for her to be with her mom for a week so I could go to the American Library Association conference in Washington. Little did we know that part of that time she would be attending her mother in the hospital once again.

My wife's short-term recovery from the surgery was unexpectedly and blessedly swift, a real turning point. Family mattered the next week when she and our daughter joined me in Washington for a day just so they could come to the ALA inaugural banquet. She rallied her strength and walked in at my side when I was introduced as president-elect. I am sure that more than half of the applause that greeted us was for her.