The team of doctors just stopped by.  Judah got a good report from them.  His tummy looks quite normal to them, and they said he’s clear to start a liquid diet today.  Judah told them he wants “pieces Reeces”, and they said that later today he can have that, but no fizzy drinks yet (meaning no Dr. Pepper).  But while the docs were trying to give me some good information, one of them was very distracted by the diffuser on my camera.  He was also admiring the laptop computer.  Finally everyone had to stop talking so I could explain where I got the diffuser, and so the doc could explain to the other docs why it was so interesting.  I showed him the iPod Touch, too, and as he was holding it, he turned to the rest of the team and said, “Goodbye.”  They all laughed and said that he would have to come back and visit more later.  I told him to come back when Michael was here, because he’s the true geek.

We had a good night last night.  Judah got crabby so I told him it was bedtime (hard to distinguish when he spends so much time in bed anyway) and he went to sleep before 9 p.m.  He was up a little after 11 p.m. to go potty, but then he didn’t wake up again (except to dodge nurses) until after 6 a.m.  We both dozed off again after that and probably would still be sleeping if the doctors hadn’t come in and woken us up.  That’s ok though.  My breakfast tray is here, so I’m going to go ask the nurse if Judah can have any nibbles off of it.

Oh, and Judah has just discovered a wonderful benefit to having his NG tube gone.  He just notified me, “Mama, I tan pick my nose!”  Great.

Hey, it’s Christie again.  I had a great day at home, and then brought Miguel and Amelia to visit Judah and to ride home again with their Daddy.  Even though Michael had a wonderful day with Judah, he was tired and ready to head home.  He was also looking forward to getting home and eating the wonderful meal my mother brought from Hot Wok.

It’s neat getting to see some of the nurses that we’ve gotten to know and who have taken such good care of our little guy.  I said good night to Jenn & Amy, and met the night nurse, Shari.  What I didn’t know is that Shari has taken care of Judah for several nights already, but it’s been when Michael has been here.  So Shari and Judah are already friends.  The best part is that Shari wore her Buzz Lightyear scrubs just for Judah!  I was so amazed, I had to take a photo and show all of you.  Judah was delighted to see Buzz on Shari’s shirt.  Shari remembered being here the night that Todd brought over the Buzz Lightyear toy from the Loomises, and she told me that was the only thing that would make Judah happy that night.  

Even though we don’t understand why we’re going through this “appendix adventure”, we sure do see so many ways that we are blessed.  The doctors and nurses have been caring and compassionate.  Our church family has been so concerned about us.  And our immediate family has taken good care of us.  We see God’s hand in so many way.  So, as the Scripture encourages us to do, we give thanks…in everything.

I don’t know who is happier, me or Judah. One of the doctors came down to the play room and said ‘Let’s check his NG tube. If it’s clear, let’s yank it.’ Judah was less than pleased to be taken out of the play room when we had basically just gotten there, but I was thrilled to be the one to see his tube taken out. When we got back to the room (he fussed the entire way back), and the nurse was only able to pull just a little bit of stuff out of his tube, the doctor said the magic words ‘Lets get rid of it.’

It took the doctor more time to get the tape undone from Judah’s face than it did to actually pull the tube out. I don’t think JD realized until after it was over what was going on, but as soon as he did, he stopped fussing and said ‘I want pieces reese’s now.’ Unfortunately for him, the doctor won’t let him have clear liquids until tomorrow, much less peanut butter candy in a crunchy shell.

We then proceeded back to the play room where all the attendants exclaimed in delight at the now NG tubless boy.

Wow – what a difference a few days makes. Last time I was here I had one of the worst nights of my life. During my shift today, Judah is making up for the bad day we had.

Last night JD dozed off before the end of American Idol (around 9:00), woke up briefly at 11 to go potty, and was quickly back to sleep. From that point on, until about 5:00 am, Judah slept! The only interruptions were the nurses coming in to ‘take his vitals’ – why do they HAVE to do that in the middle of the night?

Dr. Pearl came by again this morning, with his entire entourage, and checked on Judah. He’s not happy with the color of the stuff coming out of Judah’s NG Tube, but he’s willing to try going without the suction and see what happens. The only bad side effect would be if Judah decides to throw up what the NG tube was sucking out. Our hope is that his body will take over and move everything through the way it is supposed to. They will check his tube every four hours and see what’s happening, and if he’s clear after three checks (I think), then we can take the tube out.

Judah is really interested in eating. Whenever I have something to eat or drink, he’s asking “What’s dat?” and “Can I have some?”. I think he’s going to be a little disappointed after they take his tube out that he won’t be able to have ‘peece reeses’ and Dr. Pepper immediately, but will have to settle for that gastro-uninteresting ‘clear fluid’ diet.

Earlier today, I took Judah for a walk around the ward. He’s not used to walking that much anymore, and typically only walks to and from the play room here. I explained to him that taking the long route will help him get his tube out, and he was willing to do it. He fussed and complained the whole time, but he did it! We then proceeded to spend almost two hours in the play room. He was sitting down, getting up, crawling on the floor, rolling over and generally have a good ole-three-year-old time. There was a little girl in there at the same time who obviously wasn’t feeling good. The hospital volunteer who was escorting her was trying everything to get her to smile, but she was having none of it. I joined in to try and get her to smile, and after watching a little while, Judah joined in. He’d give her toys, do silly things and goof around with her. By the time we left, the little girl seemed to me to feel a little better, and we even got her to smile a few times. We took the long way back to the room, and got Judah situated in his bed where he is taking a well deserved nap.

I wish I had thought at the beginning of all this to take photos of folks when they came to visit, but it didn’t occur to me until last night. So, if you’ve visited and you didn’t get your photo taken, you’ll just have to come back and visit again and pose for the camera this time.

You can see Judah’s Grammy and Uncle Todd in the post from last night. Today Pastor Bob stopped by. Both times Judah was a very gracious little host. I was pleased that he wasn’t fussy and temperamental.

It always tickles me to see what Judah will say or do when visitors drop in. Today when Pastor Bob was here, Judah made very pleasant conversation about Buzz Lightyear. When Pastor Bob listed off some of the people who are praying for Judah, the little guy added… “And my friends.” I guess he must have understood the cards that Janie R. sent to him from his Sunday School class last Sunday (complete with Spiderman stickers!).

After I took the photo, Pastor Bob asked Judah if I took a lot of photos, and Judah said, “Yeah…”

The part of the visit that I thought was the sweetest was when Pastor Bob prayed for Judah. The whole time he prayed, Judah kept his little eyes closed (I peeked!), and when the prayer was done, Judah opened his eyes and smiled at Pastor.

This afternoon Pastor Jeff is supposed to stop by. Hopefully Judah will behave and I can get another photo.

Update: 6:00 p.m.

Judah wasn’t quite as cheerful and pleasant for Pastor Jeff’s visit as he has been for the past few visits. I told Jeff it must be his fault, because Judah had been just fine for Pastor Bob.

Judah did not want to pose for a photo, but I finally managed to get one where he wasn’t covering his face. That little guy can be quite stubborn!

One positive thing though is that while Pastor Jeff was here Judah actually sat up in bed on his own, without leaning back on his pillow. I think that is the first time I’ve seen him sit upright. Of course, I don’t have photographic proof of Judah’s accomplishment, but I promise it really happened.

Judah was anxious to get to the play room, so Jeff offered to pray with us so he could leave and Judah could go play. While Jeff prayed, Judah folded his hands and closed his eyes. But lest you think Judah was a little saint the whole time, I will blow his cover and tell you that the reason he folded his hands is because I tried to hold his hand to pray. He insisted he wanted to hold it himself.

We had a nice time in the play room, blowing bubbles and just being in a different environment, but finally Judah was weary and ready to head back to his bed.

Michael is on his way here now, and he’s bringing my sister for a visit. He’s also bringing Luke in honor of his birthday today. Happy 9th Birthday, Luke!

We had a good night! Judah was only up twice in the night to go potty, which is a production in and of itself, but he slept very nicely the rest of the night with only occasional sleep-talking and sleep-tossing and sleep-fussing. He made it through all of this with only one dose of Tylenol at the beginning of the night.

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Photos! If you’d like to see a little photo journal of our adventures here, check out my gallery. I’ll add to it as we continue our journey.

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Update: 11:00 a.m.

What a joy to report to you that Judah seems like a different boy today. He rested so well last night, falling back to sleep every time after he would wake up and use the potty. He slept until after 8 a.m. this morning!

Judah woke up so sweetly, with big yawns and pleasant comments to the nurse taking his vitals.

Of course he wanted to go to the play room, but I was hesitant to be out of the room before we saw the doctor on his morning rounds, so I told him we’d go later. So Judah played nicely in his bed, with the new little trucks that Miss Vicky from the church nursery sent to him. He also wanted the blue playdough and he enjoyed smashing pieces of it on top of the green spinner toy like Uncle Todd showed him last night.

When Dr. Pearl came in to see us, Judah was quite chatty and doing silly things like covering his pinky in playdough and showing it to the doctor. I found out a couple of nice details from Dr. Pearl. First, they’ll try again tomorrow to see if Judah can have his NG tube removed. The stuff coming out of his stomach needs to “look like spit” before the doctor will be happy. The doctor also said that we probably have another 3-5 days of the drains hanging off of Judah’s front and back side. But the most interesting tidbit that the doctor shared is that the abscess that was drained yesterday (and is still draining today) has yielded about one cup of liquid. Of course, they measure in metric, but that was his translation. He said that the cup-full of liquid had been pressing on Judah’s intestine, blocking it off, so that made the green stuff back up into his stomach. Now that the intestine is not being blocked off, everything is going in the right direction again and Judah is much more comfortable.

I can definitely tell a difference in Judah today from how he was two days ago when I was here. He is still fussy when he’s irritated, but he has only complained of “leg pain” or “tummy pain” when he has to go potty. That’s a pretty easy solution to his problem, although by the time we fight all the tubes and drains, we’re pretty much tied up in knots by the time we get back to the bed. But we can deal with that, too.

I’ve heard that Dave L. and Ethan are here today getting a treatment for Ethan, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to say hi to each other, since both parents pretty much need to stay with their children.  But Dave, if you’re reading this, here’s a hello from the pediatric ward. 

This was another long day for Judah. Michael was with him this time for the surgery, and I was home doing whatever it is that I do there. Today I got some grocery shopping done and some laundry, but it seemed like the rest of the day just slipped through my fingers.

Grammy was not going to be home during our regular switch-off time, so some friends came over to stay with the kids while I hurried to Peoria to trade places with Michael. Thank you to Bruce & Lisa for being so kind about coming over last-minute to help us. We are very grateful.

When I arrived, I found that we had just missed some visitors. So sorry, Bill & Tammy, that we missed you! The nurses station keeps a little book with the approved visitors, so if you decide to head this way, let me know so I can get your name put in the book. The pediatric ward is locked, and I guess they’re pretty strict about who gets to come in.

A few minutes after I got here, Judah was wheeled back to his room from surgery. He was fussy and out of sorts. But I was so glad to see Michael and Judah that I didn’t mind at all. While Judah got settled and rearranged, Michael and I caught up on the bits of news and details that we usually exchange before we part ways again.

Amazingly, after Michael left, Judah decided to be cheerful. I gave him some new Play-Doh that I had brought as a gift for him. He discovered, to his great delight, that if he pressed the playdough onto the snap-thingie that was stuck to his chest from surgery, that it made little holes in the playdough. He made two holes and then said, “Look…I made eyes!”

A short time later, Grammy and Todd stopped by for a visit. (I made sure to run put their names on the list when I heard they were coming.) I expected Judah to be crabby and inhospitable to our guests, but to my amazement, he was quite charming. We visited until Judah declared he wanted to go to the play room. Grammy and Uncle Todd followed us down to the playroom. Judah played for a long time and kept Uncle Todd hopping with his requests for different toys.

After our guests left, Judah finally fell asleep. He’s sleeping quite peacefully now. I don’t know what the night holds, but I’m hopeful that it will be better than last night.

I guess the next step is to see what the doctor says tomorrow about what we can expect next.

Thanks to all for praying and for your offers of help. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Luke’s birthday, and my mother is going to bring over a special lunch from Hot Wok. Tomorrow night we have a meal from the Nagles. Tomorrow also marks one week since Judah was admitted to the hospital. What a week it has been.

It’s not two o’clock on day seven of our hospital stay. Today, Judah has been prepped for surgery to drain an abscess that was revealed during his second CT Scan yesterday. The may just drain it while he’s in the operating room, or they may install a new (second) drain – it will be a ‘game time’ decision that the operating doctors will make.

Right now, we are waiting, and waiting, and waiting. His surgery was scheduled for 1:00 pm, but things don’t always happen on time around here.

Judah has done well today with the pain in his legs. He’s actually resting right and not the least bit perturbed that he’s late for his surgery appointment. I’ll update the blog when he gets out of surgery and when I know more.

Update: 8:30 pm

Well Judah flew through his surgery with no problems. By the time I got to him in the post-op area, he was already awake and being grumpy to the nurses.

They ended up putting another drain into him, in the front this time, so now he has two of them. That little boy is getting harder and harder to carry around with all of his medical accessories. By the time he had recovered enough to be transported back to his room, Christie was there and ready to take over for the next 24 hours.

There is nothing quite like watching your three year old, at 1:00 in the morning, be unable to get comfortable and sleep because his body is in so much pain. So much pain that a shot of morphine and a Tylenol can’t make it go away. I say there is nothing like it – if there is, I never want to see it. In fact, I never want to see Judah go through this again! I would give just about anything for him to be able to sleep.

Update: 2:55 am

Right now it seems he has finally dozed off for at least a little bit. I’m not sure if he doesn’t hurt as much, or if he’s just exhausted – but if he’s sleeping, I’m all for it.

Update: 7:45 am

Well, I don’t know what made the difference, but Judah has been sleeping pretty much solid since about 3:30 this morning. It is safe to say that last night is the worst night I’ve ever had, and that it’s not an experience that I’d wish upon anyone.

Judah was pretty grumpy this afternoon, with quite a few bit of intrusion into his little world. He didn’t like anyone doing anything to him, but he didn’t have a choice, so instead he expressed his displeasure at everyone and everything.

But I feel like our prayers were answered as he had to have the contrast fluid put into his stomach four different times, and two of those times he slept through it completely, not even aware anything was done. The other two times were a different story. Fortunately he didn’t have to have as much of it, and he only threw up a tiny bit of it once.

Finally it was time for him to go to the scan. A red wagon was his wheels, and he was tucked in with pillows and a blanket. He wasn’t happy about the transport, but he endured it pretty well. Once we got to the CT scan room, I lifted him up to the narrow table. Again, he was fussy. But a moment later the nurse handed him a blue plastic ray gun with swirling lights and a cool sound, and Judah instantly smiled. He laid perfectly still and squeezed that noisy, flashing gun the whole time. When the test was finally over, I lifted him back into the wagon, and he was immediately fussy again. But I didn’t care. He had done such a good job holding still for the test.

On the way back to our room, Judah expressed an interest in going to the play room, so the nurse wheeled him directly there. We had fun in there for a bit, playing with some dominoes and a green lighted whirlygig thing, until Judah suddenly needed the potty. That was the end of the playroom, so now we are back in our own room, and I’m so glad to have the whole CT scan thing done. What a project!