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I wish I could've used this entry to talk about my 19th birthday that just passed and how lame/awesome it was, how my summer has been so far, or just do a massive upload of Anime Expo photos and expressed glee that I had during the convention. Instead, I'm going to have to express something a little more serious that hit me hard.

So it's no surprise that my brother has been on his mission for about 18 months now. It was estimated that he would serve the remaining six, return home and I would leave for mine shortly thereafter.

Well, to my family's utter shock and dismay, we received a call from his mission president today telling us my brother was in a serious accident and was hospitalized earlier today.

Story is that he and other missionaries were doing a service project, tearing down a dilapidated building or something of that sort. As he and another missionary were removing the top cinder-blocks of a particular wall, a portion of it collapsed atop his companion and another shortly thereafter collapsed atop my brother. Not wanting to take him to the small clinic their town had for a hospital, they traveled across the country to the capital to put him in a hospital more suited for his situation. It was determined that his pelvis was fractured in four spots and that he had lost 8 pints of blood due to internal bleeding. It was later determined that his colon and intestines needed a quick fix.

Although terrible in it's own right, we were told that his injuries were miraculous. Eight pints of blood loss is more or less near the body's limit before it starts to take some serious damage. He was also very luck that his head remained intact, or that his lungs weren't punctured or that he suffered no other serious injuries that could have occurred from a wall falling on a man.

Current estimate is that he'll be hospitalized for at least a week before he's found fit to be able to travel home, where he'll spend two months recovering. Afterwards, it's debatable if he'll continue his mission or not, either by his own choice or by the decision of the mission president.

He's doing a lot better now, as are we now that the shock has settled. Of course, this whole event now brings into question my mission, as since my brother is coming home, there's really no reason for me to wait until Feb. to submit the paperwork.

A lot of things going through a lot of heads at the moments. Trying to sort things out but I'll try and keep this updated with the situation.