Update on Stuff

So… at the end of January, I strained a ligament at work and couldn’t stand up without help for a few days. I was staying at my parents’ house and was not on the Internet much. I got better, and then I sprained my wrist a bit. I got better, but I wasn’t on the Internet much.

Then I caught a really bad flu that wanted to turn into pneumonia, so I was spending most of my time at home asleep, fighting it off. Again, not much Internet.

Then, on Monday last week, my mom called to say that my dad was going to the hospital for very high blood pressure. He had the same gunk that I had, so the doctors thought it might be stress from coughing, or some kind of walking pneumonia. Mom wanted me to go stay with her, so I did.

It turned out that at some point, within the last two years since my dad got an extensive checkout with MRIs and ultrasound and all sorts of things, a couple of his heart valves had clogged up. He had to have almost immediate surgery to put in stents (using one of those balloon things that they run up through your blood veins and then inflate at the desired place).

It went very well, and my dad is more himself already than he has been. He is home.

They will be doing more stents in a couple of weeks, and I would appreciate prayers for him.

I don’t think it’s saying too much to say that the timing was miraculous, and that the doctors and nurses were very alert to have figured this out. It’s also providential that his therapy exercise trainers were so adamant about encouraging my parents to consult their doctor, when they found out that Dad’s blood pressure was too high.

So anyway… that’s why I haven’t been on the Internet as much lately. I literally don’t know what to feel, because so much has happened; and yet I do have mundane matters to take care of, in the next day or so. I don’t have much control over the situation, so I guess I just have to mind what I can actually affect for the good.

St. Callisthene, Another Female Doctor

St. Callisthene of Ephesus was a beautiful and well-educated young woman of good family; her father was an imperial bureaucrat, the eparch Adauctus. They were both Christians. Her mother was dead, and we don’t know her name.

Unfortunately, Callisthene caught the eye of co-Emperor Galerius (the other co-emperor was Constantius, at this point), who wanted to marry her. The eparch refused the flattering offer for his daughter’s hand, on the grounds that he didn’t want to marry his Christian daughter to a pagan husband.

And apparently Adauctus didn’t think Galerius was going to take no for an answer, or convert in order to marry, because he sent his daughter away, disguised as a young man.

Adauctus was exiled to Armenia, and then beheaded there. He is considered to be a martyr.

Callisthene moved to Nicomedia and then to Thrace, where she earned her bread as a doctor (still dressed up as a guy). At one point, she healed a young woman of an eye disease, and her parents were so impressed that they offered to marry her off to “him.” She had to reveal her true sex to them; and they kept her secret and praised God.

She decided to move along, and ended up living as a hermit “monk” in the wilderness.

After many years of persecuting Christians, Emperor Galerius died (releasing the famous Edict of Toleration as one of his last acts, and begging Christians to forgive him and pray for him). Callisthene then happened to meet Constantia, the wife of the new co-Emperor, Licinius. She helped Callisthene take back her identity and get back her father’s confiscated goods, and even helped get Adauctus’ body returned to Ephesus.

Callisthene founded a church in Ephesus where her father was reburied, and she gave away all his money to the poor. She eventually died in Ephesus; and her day is on October 4, along with her father.

The wedding proposal timeline in the traditional legend is a little confusing. Probably this is about something that happened when Galerius was already powerful, but hadn’t yet been made a Caesar or an Emperor.

The “lucky” girl who ended up marrying Galerius, when he was made Emperor Diocletian’s heir and thus a Caesar, was Diocletian’s daughter Valeria (known as Galeria Valeria). Her mother was called Aurelia Prisca. They were possibly secret Christians during Diocletian’s time, and were certainly sympathetic to Christians. There’s a very sad story about them in Lactantius’ history, and they seem to have been Christians by the time of their execution by drowning, after the deaths of Diocletian and Galerius. They are commemorated as martyrs in the East: St. Valeria and St. Alexandra (we don’t know why — maybe Alexandra was Prisca’s baptismal name).

Penthera = Mother-in-Law

Penthera (the wife’s mother) and pentheros (the wife’s father) are ancient Greek words used in the Bible. They were used in Homer. The etymology is unclear.