Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, returned to the Senate today, and thanked senators and others for their cards and prayers while she was ill, undergoing seven surgeries since Christmas. “The cards are over 2 feet tall, and the prayer lists – I don’t think there’s any denomination that doesn’t have our family on their prayer list,” she said. Lodge said her family had a “rough three months.” A daughter was bedridden for three months before giving birth to healthy twins. Lodge lost her mother, who had been ill. Then, the day after all the kids left from a Christmas visit, she found out she needed surgery, which then became multiple surgeries. And while she was going through her ordeal, her husband, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, also had to undergo emergency surgery.

Lodge thanked Kimberly Johnson of Caldwell, who substituted for her while she was out. “I asked her to come in for a week … and it ended up being five weeks,” she said. “Thank you all so very much. I’m standing, maybe a little shaky, but I’m standing.”