Thanks all.... I feel that the combined power of your prayers has helped tremendously... I talked to her this morning on the phone... she's insisted that I not come to the hospital every day... it's about 1 1/2 hour drive up there and she's starting to worry about the cost... she's the keeper of the family monies, so she's watching the spending closely... She's doing much better in her speech, still a little slur on some words and she sounds winded sometimes, but you can understand about 95% of her words.... we're still waiting for the doctors to decide exact course of treatment... they need to resolve the back pain, get the blood infection under control and then they're saying she needs open heart for the replacement of two of her heart valves.... maybe and we're hoping that once the infection is controlled, the valves may return to normal and she won't need surgery.