Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink

Water is central to the rituals of many religions. It is thought to have mystical properties.

Devout Hindus purify themselves by bathing in the holy waters of the Ganges.

Pious Christians are dunked or sprinkled in water as part of their spiritual rebirth.

The Hopi, Anasazi, Navajo and other American Southwestern tribes practiced elaborate rituals to produce rain.

Seventeen years ago, in the highlands of Chiapas, Cary and I witnessed Maya worshipers rolling chicken eggs along the village of San Juan de Chamula's Catholic church's dirt floor with a Coke can (I'm not making this up-don't tell the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company!) Water (or Coca-Cola, in Chiapas) is central to spiritual and material life.

Last night, our little Errol went through a rebirth ceremony of his own.

The great frustration of dehydration is that when we become dangerously dehydrated, like Errol has been, we can not take the very liquids that our survival requires. Over this past treacherous Thanksgiving week, Errol has only consumed a precious few ounces of liquid a day, and has become more and more withered.

To stop Errol's precipitous drift away from health, the Duke doctors pimped out his PICC line and bombarded him with potasium chloride (zero calories, and that same great Coke taste!)

After only a few minutes, the change in Errol was unmistakable, and after a few hours of working their way through the little man's body, these fluids of life were reintroduced to the world in a tsunami of urine that just about drowned the little man - next time I'll ask them to outfit Errol with a flotation device.

The bed was wet, but Errol had been cleansed! After we cleaned Errol up, and repaired the levees, Errol and I slept more soundly than we had in the past two weeks. Hallelujah!