What next?

Today was another fun-filled day. Molly was goofing around with the boys last night and fell over the back of the couch. She cried a little bit and complained about her hand, but it didn't seem too serious at the time. However, she woke up crying about 79 times (at least it felt like 79, but maybe it was actually only 59 times) last night and I knew something was definitely wrong. She was still favoring her hand this morning, so we headed for an x-ray and a visit to the pediatrician (and thank goodness Miles wasn't with us so he could kill the nurse Kathy). Sure enough, Molly has a fracture on her radius close to the wrist. After a visit to the orthopedist, she's now sporting a lovely purple cast. I wish I could say it has slowed her down a little bit, but about an hour after getting her cast on, I caught her pushing her Big Wheel up our steep driveway for a one-handed thrill ride.

I wish I could say Dave is doing much better, but it seems like slow progress or maybe no progress at all. Ok, it actually feels like another giant step backwards. I don't even know where to begin. They drained the fluid that had built up and was causing so much pain. They'll continue to have that drain hooked up to suction to drain anything that is still leaking in that area. He has also developed mild pneumonia and there were signs of infection in the fluid they are draining, so he's been on IV antibiotics since Friday night. It appears the fluid was leaking from his thoracic duct, so I'm told it should take care of itself once they dry the area out. However, drying the area out means no more eating or drinking for Dave either by mouth or by tube feedings (not that I think tube feeding qualifies as either eating or drinking). They put a PICC line back in (he had one during his chemo) to keep him nutrified and hydrated.

I had promised Molly we could go visit Daddy in the hospital (hopala as she calls it) after we finished up with her appointments, so we headed over to Swedish. We were stopped cold at the door of his room. Now he also has a staph infection at the site of one of his JP drains, so they have him in isolation. They've got him on some new IV antibiotics as the staph bacteria is apparently resistant to the other antibiotics they were using. I can go see him in the morning, but I'll have to don full combat gear - gown, mask, gloves, etc - before I can go in his room. The nurse said they'll probably have him in isolation through the entire 10-day course of antibiotics. Nice.

He's still on the heavy-duty pain meds so he's not always totally lucid. I think it's the morphine that has him really wiggy. He called tonight and said he was confused about the scale of things, like they've got some extra large washcloths and chairs in his room. I didn't realize he was higher than a kite until he said something about how his teeth had been really huge, but now they got really small and it was ok. All I could think about was that Jefferson Airplane song, White Rabbit, "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small..." And, the funny thing is that the boys were watching Alice in Wonderland yesterday and when I walked in the room and saw the "hookah smoking caterpillar" I realized I've read the book, but had never seen the movie. I love the song White Rabbit, but Dave really hates it.

Well, that's about it. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully it can't be any worse than today...