Discoveries of the Human Body

Mom called me on Sunday, and said I needed to come home. I knew she wasn't messing around. She told me she thought Josh was going to die. He had candida (yeast infection) all through his peritoneum, and had pulmonary edema. They couldn't get him to eat or his bowels to move, and they were worried about an infection in his central line. So, my dad called a friend to get me on a plane headed home on Tuesday. Thank God it is Spring Break for me. Anyway, so I grieve all day Sunday. Just feeling overall shitty. Monday rolls around, and my mom calls me to say that Josh is doing much better, and that she has been able to feed him with a feeding tube. So, I head out to Oklahoma on Tuesday to offer mom some relief pitching, since she and my mom's friend Charolet had been watching Josh in 12 hour shifts, and they were exhausted.

So, I get home really early on Tuesday to help mom. Josh is kind of gorked out in the hospital, and has restraints on his arms to keep him from tugging on the feeding tube and the central line. Anyway, I mom shows me how to feed him through the tube, and he has to be fed every six hours. At about 5 in the morning, I turned on the lights to feed him through the tube. I had to restrain him, which he was pretty pissed about. Anyway, I started the feeding, and at the end was ready to flush the line. To feed him, I hook up this big syringe that is the size of a turkey baster. Anyway, I'm flushing the line, so I have water in the turkey baster thing with the top off. Josh starts bearing down because he was gassy, and when he did, he pushed gas through the line, and essentially blew bubbles through the top of the syringe. He was so out of it, but still managed to laugh, because he found a new hole to fart through. He may be retarded, but he is still a boy.

So, he got discharged from the hospital the next day, and has been at home recovering. He is doing so much better. To all, thanks for all of your continued prayers. We very nearly lost him, but now the girls at the hospital have started to call him Lazarus.