Good morning. I just sent Michael an e-mail, and I thought you might like to eavesdrop, rather than me re-typing it all here.

Well, the whole team of docs came through.

They stood outside the door and talked about Judah’s case for a while.
I listened some.

Anyway, they all came in and Dr. Pearl explained that we’re not out of
the woods yet. He said that Judah’s fever and discomfort indicates
something else is going on. They want to repeat the CT scan, which
means more contrast, etc. They’re wondering if a different pocket has
formed.

Dr. Pearl said, “How long did I tell you you’d be here?” I said, ‘You
said ‘days’.”

He said that three-year-old appendix cases are bad because they present so late.

After hearing all that, I didn’t even bother asking the question I was
going to ask about letting Judah eat. The answer was an obvious one.

But I did tell Dr. Pearl that I had looked him up online, and I
wondered if he flies. He said he used to. In another life. I told
him that it fascinated us because it’s been your dream to someday get
your pilot’s license. The other Indian doc, the skinny one, asked me,
“Are you going to let him?” I said yes! He said that he used to
fly but his wife won’t let him any more. Dr. Pearl looked at him and
said, “Why not? Just get more life insurance and fly!”

They examined Judah a little, and he squirmed and squealed, but the
rest of the time he was fast asleep. I was glad for that.

I didn’t mention the photo idea, because Judah was so out of it.
Wouldn’t have made a good photo. But I’m getting the impression we’ll
get another chance to get the photo, since it seems we’ll be here a
while longer.

So, there you have it. Today will not be a fun one. Judah really hates having the contrast liquid pumped into his stomach, but it’s necessary for the CT scan to be readable. Otherwise the intestines all look like little pockets of stuff. The contrast helps the intestines to stand out from the other parts of his insides.

On a positive note, even though we no longer have our private room, the shared room really is tolerable. There’s another little boy, younger than Judah, sharing our room. I’m quite relieved that he’s a bit fussy and noisy too, so Judah doesn’t stick out as being the disruptive one. We have curtains to pull around for privacy, and I told Judah that with the curtains all around it feels like we’re in a treehouse. He liked that idea. Another plus is that the chair in this room is so much more comfortable for sleeping. It pulls out into a flat bed, so I enjoyed that last night. The down side of having a more comfortable bed is that it’s harder to wake up in the night when Judah fusses since I’m more soundly asleep. Judah had a rough night last night, so I was up about every two hours or so with him.

I had hoped we’d be able to go home at some point this week, but I’m getting the impression we’re not going anywhere for a while. The novelty of this adventure is starting to wear thin. I guess it’s time to settle in for the long haul.