4/19 Status Report

Jake had a more restful night, which means Daddy had a restful night. He slept a few hours (although not enough), and when he did wake up he wanted to watch the brand new Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea movie. While he watches the movie, I get to doze off in the chair. Since the movie is 90 minutes and the free add-in videos are another 90 minutes, that gives me a potential 3 additional hours of rest.

This restfulness is partially due to the fact that he was in some cramping pain yesterday evening, so they put him on some minute amounts of morphine. They tell us he's off the dependence cycle, so there's no reason not to treat pain when it comes. FYI - when he's stoned, he likes you to touch his toes at all times. That's why I'm typing this with one hand. Feel free to insert your own joke here, but please overcome the urge to post it to the website.

The pain appears to have come from his attempts to purge the blood clots in his bladder. We haven't seen much more urine, and the urinary blood seems to have mostly stopped as well. The docs now think that it's possible that the urine had accumulated in the bladder over the past few days (rather than from current production), but the bladder didn't purge until the blood from the biopsy leak in. To my high school biology mind, even a slow accumulation of urine would indicate some kind of kidney function. In any event, we hope for an initial kidney biopsy reading later today.

Due to all the biopsy complications and dialysis yesterday, they temporarily took him off the feeding tube. He's hungry and thirsty, so they'll put him back on the feeding tube this morning for some easy to digest formula. Until he's eating, please don't mention food in front of him. I inadvertently mentioned pizza in a discussion with somebody, and he chimed in that "pizza is yummy." So true.

Jen's Mom is leaving this afternoon, and my family is coming down tomorrow. That may lead to a temporary doting deficiency, but (like everything else) we'll quickly overcompensate.

Meanwhile, I've had plenty of time to read all the magazines that people have brought. They run the spectrum from People to In Touch to US to The Star to TV Guide. It's not a very wide spectrum, and spans from indigo to violet. On the other hand, I've developed a comprehensive expertise in Reese's divorce, Angelina's adoption and Britney's recovery.