Getting into a routine

Things have been settling into a routine. Alan has been resting comfortably while the staff keep him sedated and manage his pain. Alan had a small bowel movement today, which is progress from even a few days ago. His urine is almost completely clear. Hooray for poop!

He's getting food through an ND tube as they ease off the IV nutrition - starting off with just 5 ml per hour so his digestive system would keep working. The ICU pediatrician raised the feeding rate up to 10/hour this morning since he had been tolerating the feeding well. He also increased the rate of Lasiks to try to get the swelling down more as well as a supplement that would help Alan get rid of the proteins in his blood from muscle breakdown. Slowly, slowly they're getting Alan's body back into balance.

Doc L stopped by today, she's been pleased how everything looks. She wants to wait a little longer for the swelling to go down before she can sew up the incisions on his right leg. We will probably be in ICU until the weekend. One of Doc HJ's partners stopped by as well - things are looking good... they expect he'll keep his catheter and stent for 7-10 days (we're on day 4 right now).

Finally, there was an x-ray of his lungs and an ultrasound of his kidneys. They just want to make sure there are no blockages at all with his urinal tract, especially in the repaired ureter. As for the culture from Alan's lungs on Saturday, because of the weekend they only started the testing on it today. It will take 24 hours for the full results, but so far so good.

And now for a few smiles and laughs, because if we can't laugh, we'd never stop crying:

• when we first went to the bathroom in Alan's room to wash our hands, we looked around for the faucets to turn on the water. The base of the faucets were there, but nothing to turn them. It took a minute or two to realize that these sinks were controlled by foot pedals!


• on a related note, as befits a cancer hospital, MD Anderson is full of hands free dispensers, which leads to a lot of ice and water all over the place as we try to figure out the sensors to turn them on and off.


• because of the holiday season, that here has been a lot of musical entertainment in the halls of MD Anderson. This morning, there was a group of young people in the Fountain Courtyard singing and dancing - it was real life Glee!


• while Alan was free of intubation on Saturday, we often gave him a little water on a sponge to moisten his mouth. He would eagerly stick his tongue out for it, and a couple of times we asked him if he wanted more water. He roughly, but distinctly, said "Yah! Yah!" with much enthusiasm.