After bringing Judah to the hospital on Wednesday, Christie took my place and stayed with Judah for the first night. It was interesting to see how the children at home were handling the sudden change in the family dynamic. Without fail, each of them is worried and concerned about Judah, and none of them think it feels right to not have him around the house. All of them – well, except Lilly – want to come to Peoria and see Judah and let him know how much they care and miss him.

Thanks to St. Francis having free wireless internet connections available, I was able to set up a video conference using Apple’s iChat software, so the kids could talk to their mother and say ‘Hi’ to Judah. Judah failed to see what was so impressive about the whole thing and was pretty grumpy about it all, but the kids at home enjoyed it, and it scratched their collective ‘itch’ a little bit.

Last night, I brought Laura and Isaac with me when I came back to the hospital to take back over on the ‘hospital shift’. They didn’t seem to be overly interested in Judah once we got here (he was still being grumpy), but I’m sure it did their hearts good to see him. We’ll continue to bring a few kids back and forth as Christie and I exchange duties over here.

The night with Judah went as good as could be expected. The sleeping arrangements for the ‘caregiver’ are not exactly five-star, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than in his room with him. He slept off and on through the night, interrupted by occasional pains and nurses doing their rounds.

The entire team of doctors came by this morning around 8:30 to check on Judah and to reassure me that things are going as expected. They haven’t been able to get a lot from the drain they installed yesterday, but they think that it’s because there isn’t a lot there, and that he’s mostly suffering from inflammation in his belly.

Dr. Pearl reminded me that this course of treatment is successful 90%-95% of the time, but that it takes ‘days’ (7-10 at least). If it doesn’t work, they will have to do surgery on him as-is, but laparoscopic surgery probably wouldn’t work due to all the inflammation.

Due to all the poking and prodding Judah has been subjected to these past few days, he starts fussing immediately whenever a nurse or doctor enters the room. I’ve chosen to look at that as a good sign – when I brought him in here, he was so lethargic that he didn’t even complain when they put the NG Tube in – something I’m sure he’d complain about greatly today.

I think I’ll take advantage of his resting and go search the hospital for some real soda – all they have in the pantry here is diet soda or regular Pepsi. Where’s my Dr. Pepper?