Judah doesn’t understand what’s coming later today, but I know full well how unpleasant it will be for him to have the contrast fluid pumped into his stomach every 20 minutes for an hour or two. Then after that he’ll go to have another CT scan. Judah is only aware of the present moment, and in some ways, that’s a blessing for him.

After a rough morning, the sun came out for Judah (after a nice dose of Tylenol), and he cheered up considerably. So I’ve just been basking in the calm, peaceful time and enjoying Judah’s company. We had great fun coloring in the special book that his Grammy brought to him yesterday. I laid in bed next to him and we took turns coloring the pictures. Judah was full of fun little comments and observations. At one point he said, “You did a good job, Mama!” He used the same tone that I use with the kids when I’m admiring their artwork. Another time he poked me with the little coloring stick, and he said, “I’m sorry!” I said that was ok, and I gave him a little poke back. He giggled and poked me again. We poked back and forth for a while until that game lost it’s attraction.

There are several things to note in this photo. First, on the far right you can see Judah’s blood-pressure cuff wrapped around his bed rail. Judah doesn’t really like having his arm or leg squeezed with this, but he sure does like being able to take it off by himself once it’s done. Second, notice the special quilt Judah is covered up with. That was a baby gift to him from Melody G.’s mom. It’s nice to have a bit of home here.

Oh…it’s bath time now! So I’ll finish this post later. Stay tuned!

Ok, I’m back. Bath time is really not popular with Judah. Since he has the drain in his back side, he just has a sponge bath in his bed. But he fusses and objects the whole time. Now Judah is all clean and smells like baby lotion. He’s wearing a little shirt and shorts set from the hospital, and it’s so cute! I wanted to take his photo, but he very politely said he didn’t want me to, so I won’t push it this time. There are many unpleasant things he doesn’t have a say in, so sometimes it’s nice to give him a little voice in what happens to him.

Now, back to what to notice in the photo above. You can see that Judah has a bandaid on his left hand. That just happens to be a Lightning McQueen bandaid, and he’s been wearing it since last Thursday. It’s finally starting to peel off a little, much to Judah’s dismay, so his nurse promised to see if she could find another one for him.

Next, look closely and you can see part of Buzz Lightyear sticking out from under the blanket just to the left of Judah. Buzz stays pretty close to Judah much of the time. If Judah ever needs a little break from Buzz, then Buzz stands on the shelf or table in the room and watches Judah until he’s allowed to come back to the bed.

Last, you can see part of an orange and black tiger flashlight to the left of Judah. When Amelia and Miguel came over for a visit Saturday night, Amelia found that tiger flashlight in the activity room here, and she brought it to Judah to play with. He loves it! When the tiger’s tail is squeezed, the tiger opens his mouth, growls and shines the light. So we go through long spells of the tiger growling and growling and the light shining all around. I’ve told Judah a few times that this toy is only ours to borrow and that it’s not his. Hopefully he’ll remember that when it’s time to say goodbye and leave the hospital.

So, there’s your little tour of this moment in Judah’s life. Or, as they say in Bug’s Life, “That’s our lot in life. It’s not a lot, but it’s our life!”

Oh, and I just found out that Judah’s next CT scan is scheduled for 3 pm, so around 1 pm he’ll start getting the contrast fluids. As you think of him, you could pray that it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable for him to ingest those fluids and that the docs would get a good reading from the scan. Thank you!

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.

Good night.

Sleep tight.

Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

All of our recent news has been focused on Judah, but in the background other exciting things have been happening. Specifically, our baby bird has defied the odds and is still alive. We can’t believe it! Everything I read and everyone I talked to warned me that most baby birds do not live when they’ve been rescued by humans. So I kept warning the children that they should be prepared every morning for the bird to die. Instead, the bird has been getting bigger and more active, and he’s growing feathers!!! He is now nine days old.

Today was the first day that all of the trained bird feeders were going to be out of the house, so we had a dilemma. Since all of us were going to church, what should we do with Frizz? I supposed that he would probably live if we didn’t feed him for the three hours we would be gone, but ever since he’s been adopted by our family, he has eaten every 20 minutes or so from morning to night. (At night time he has to sleep through the night, since we figured he’d have to do that in the wild, too.) Finally I decided to just take him to church with us. Since Frizz is so noisy, it wasn’t an option for him to go into the actual church building, so we cracked the windows of the van, put his little bed down on the floor in the shade, and Isaac ran out every 20 minutes to feed the critter. No doubt there were folks who rolled their eyes at our nonsense, but I know one little bird who was very grateful he was adopted by an eccentric family who didn’t mind taking him to church.

As Frizz is growing and sprouting feathers and opening his eyes, we are trying to make ourselves believe that he is cute. But the glaring fact is that he is NOT cute at all. He’s downright ugly. Do you think perhaps he looks like a Pterodactyl? Whatever he looks like, I’ve decided he has a face that only a mother could love.

Judah and I had a good night last night. He seemed to only wake up when the nurses would come in to do their thing to his IV, and he’d quickly dose back off.

Today, we get to find out if he can have the NG Tube removed, and resume eating like a normal person. He’s looking forward to that! Every time someone walks by with food or drink he says ‘What’s that?’ and ‘Can I have some?’. Last night when I was almost done with my Dr. Pepper he said ‘Can I have the rest?’, so obviously food and drink are on his mind.

This morning he’s complaining about his legs hurting. When this whole thing started (when we thought it was the flu) he’d complain that his legs hurt, then finally on Wednesday he said his tummy hurt. Maybe, since he’s not complaining about his tummy any more, things inside are moving back to their right place and causing his legs to ache.

Update: 12:50

A little bit of a set back just happened. We were all set to have his NG tube removed around 10:00, but the doctors got tied up in surgery and it got delayed. Well, right after my lunch was delivered to me, Judah decided to throw up a lot of yucky green stuff I was there and ready for it, but he managed to miss the catch try and turn everything around him a bright neon-green color.

Then! the doctor showed up. The doctor put Judah back on suction and we’ve restarted the process of trying to get him off of the NG tube.

Just as I was getting used to things around here, the nurse comes in and changes everything.

The good news is that Judah isn’t so sick as to need an isolation room, so we’ve been moved into a shared room with another family and their little child.

The bad news is that there is a kid coming in who is sicker than Judah and needs to be isolated from everyone else. With as sick as Judah was, I can’t imagine dealing with a more serious illness in a small child. My heart goes out to those parents.

While I won’t enjoy sharing a room, I’m trying to be grateful that Judah isn’t so sick that he needs to be isolated away from others.

We have been so blessed by the outpouring of love and prayer from our church family. Tonight when Uncle Todd came to visit, he brought over a present that a church family had given us for Judah. Judah is famous around church for calling himself different names. A popular one is ‘Buzz Lightyear’ from Pixar’s Toy Story. Judah was acting grumpy when Uncle Todd came in, but he perked right up when Todd pulled out the present. “I want that!” he said, very clearly and audibly. I don’t suppose that Judah will be leaving Buzz anywhere for a while - he even brought him into the bathroom.

Even though we had a rough night, and Judah was a little fussy this morning, he surprised me by calming down and actually being a little silly and giving me a smile. I was amazed. I haven’t seen him smile since Sunday.

One of the doctors just came by for a check up. He said that we can start monitoring the NG tube and see if Judah is able to start eating. Perhaps by tonight or tomorrow he can have the tube removed and start eating. That will be nice, since this morning he was actually asking for something to eat.

My goal for today is to get Judah up and out of bed for a walk. I keep telling him about the play room, so I think he’s anxious to see it.

Update: 10:00 a.m.

Judah went to the play room! Even though he said he wanted to go, he started getting fussy as we were getting him ready to go. I decided he was going anyway, so we persevered. Once he was all dressed and ready to go, we headed out the door. He has to have an entourage following him with his i.v. pole and all the tubes, but we were mobile. The play room is a very short walk away, but by the time we got there, Judah was ready to sit on one of the little chairs to rest. He found a truck that appealed to him, so we put it on the table and he looked at it. Then we found a bin of little toys and figures, and he enjoyed looking at those. “It’s Yoshi!”, he exclaimed.

After about two minutes Judah was exhausted. He started crying again and we packed up to go back to the room. Now he’s laying in bed again, with the blue truck from the play room next to him. I’m glad he got some exercise.

Next time we go, I’ll try to take the camera along so you can enjoy the sight of a little guy surrounded by toys.

Update: 2:00 pm

Judah hasn’t had the strength to go to the toy room again this afternoon. But he is staying awake longer during the day, so I’m encouraged that perhaps he is starting to feel enough better that he doesn’t need as much sleep during the day. He is also more cheerful than he has been. He even carried on a conversation with the cleaning lady when she came in. At first he was scowling at her; but when he realized she wasn’t going to poke or prod him or shove fluids into his i.v.’s, he brightened up and they chatted for quite a few minutes.

This morning the doctor gave permission for the NG tube to be disconnected from the vacuum for some hours this afternoon to see how Judah’s stomach is doing. In another hour or so we’ll have the first test to see if the stomach is working properly. If Judah passes these tests, then perhaps by tonight or tomorrow morning he’ll be allowed to start eating food and drinking water. As much as I wish I could be here to feed Judah the first food that he’s had this week, I will hand that over to Michael and gladly go home to rest before heading back to the hospital tomorrow night again. At least I can take joy in the fact that I got to take Judah on his first walk to the play room today. That was pretty special.

Update: 6:00 p.m.

Quite report:  Judah’s stomach report was good!  So if he continues to show good reports through the night, he’ll have a good argument to ask for the NG tube to come out.

Michael is on his way here with Miguel and Amelia.  Then I’ll take the two kiddos and head home.

Last night Judah seemed rather quiet and likely to sleep through the night, so I was anticipating a nice rest.  Unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned.  Judah was up three times in the night, crying and wishing to go potty.  He seemed feverish, so the nurse took his temperature and sure enough, he was at 102.  So she gave him another dose of morphine as well as some tylenol. 

I must say, I’m so grateful that Michael and I are able to trade off on these night shifts.  I can’t imagine going through this night after night.  It’s tolerable every other night.

Hello, this is Christie again.  I’m back on duty in Peoria until tomorrow night (Saturday night). Then Michael will come back here and I’ll go home to get ready for Sunday.

Last night when I got home, I was surprised at how tired I felt.  But I was so grateful to be home and I really enjoyed sleeping in my own bed.  

Knowing that we have probably at least a week of this back-and-forth stuff to get through, I was very aware of the things I wanted to get done before heading back to the hospital.  So my day today started at 6 a.m. when Lilly woke me up to nurse.  After I nursed her and she fell back to sleep, I decided to get up and make coffee.  I also made a Baked Oatmeal for breakfast, and then I started on a double-batch of carrot cake muffins.  It seems important to me to keep yummy things on hand for the family even though life is a little crazy right now.  

I hurried from one task to another; getting laundry done, helping with school work, feeding the baby bird (that is growing like crazy!), taking care of Lilly, checking in on Michael and Judah via e-mail and instant messages, making a grocery list, and all the other little things that typically fill my day.  I had a list on a whiteboard on the fridge that I worked through, erasing each item as it was completed.

Before I knew it, the time had come to get ready to head back to Peoria.  Luke was invited to go along with me, and he got permission from his dad for us to grab some fast food our way out of town.  We drove through McDonalds (Luke’s choice) and then headed west.

When we arrived in Judah’s room, we were pleased to see that he is much more cheerful than yesterday.  He was watching a show in his daddy’s iPod and not fussy at all.  Luke was so tickled to get to see all the interesting things here at the hospital.  First I pointed out all the tubes going into and out of Judah and explained what each thing was for.  (Judah wasn’t too thrilled about that!) Then I showed him the play room and we picked out some books to take to show to Judah.  I also showed Luke the little pantry where there are snacks for folks to enjoy.  He agonized over which snack to choose for himself, finally choosing a strawberry Pop-Tart.

Luke made the observation that he hadn’t seen Michael and me together for days.  I hadn’t given it much thought, but it meant something to Luke to see Michael and me talking and hugging and together.

Michael gave me the daily report about how to get Judah to the potty, when his last pain meds were given, etc.  But as much as we enjoy being together, Michael was very tired and had a slight headache and was anxious to get home.  So we said our goodbyes and the guys left for home.

It’s amazing to me how much more calm and rested Judah seems to be.  He’s actually playing with little toys as he lays in bed.  He has no desire to sit or stand or walk, but he is enjoying some little trucks and action figures as he lays still.  

Judah seems to accept all the tubes and the drain without much complaint at all.  Now and then he’ll say that one of them is uncomfortable.  But he hasn’t pulled the tape off or dislodged anything.  

Michael suggested that tomorrow we should try to get Judah out of bed and to the play room.  One of the doctors told me that it’s so important for the patient to get exercise so that his insides will work properly.  So even if Judah doesn’t feel like moving, we’ll have to insist that he gets out of bed for a little while.

Judah’s temperature seems to be much closer to normal, and he is on a more nutritious i.v. now.  He still isn’t eating or drinking anything, but he has permission to have ice chips sometimes.

Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers.  And thank you to those who are helping us with child care and keeping things running as smoothly as possible at home.  

Michael’s mother is taking more of the burden of childcare and meal preparation while I’m gone.  Michael’s employer has given him the time off that he needs to be available to his family during this time, and we are so grateful for their generosity.  So many people have told us they are praying for Judah and praying for our family.  We are humbled by your love.  Thank you.

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?