4 West, Here We Come!

Great news! 4 West is cleaning a room for us. Our nurse says we'll be outta PICU in about an hour. What. A. Relief.

Soon, we will be able to walk in/out of the room freely. No super security doors to buzz through. We can have more than two people in the room. Pablo can watch movies on my iMac-no more snowy, crappy commercial TV. Up to now, Pablo has seen commercials only in passing. We'd like to keep it that way. He is watching Cartoon Network and just saw a spot for a new spoof movie; he saw a gun, a handful of sexual references, and some racial humor thrown in for good measure. And it was a 30 second spot. The show he is watching (no clue what it's called) has an Army dude character who - I swear - just ridiculed a man loving a man. Nice.

Now, you might ask, Why don't you just turn off the TV dude? Good question. My answer is: because temporarily exposing Pablo to culture trash is better than him looking at the ceiling. Or watching one of the VHS movies from the vast ICU library ('Jungle 2 Jungle' starring Tim Allen and Martin Short, 'Austin Powers,' and other off-brand Disney stuff) again?!?! We aren't expecting TV or any media (except books and music) to influence or kids' thinking. We teach both of our sons to respect all people, regardless of their skin tone, sexual preference(s), political or spiritual views, etc. In a given week, our kids are around people from all walks of life, so this is more than a theoretical excercise. Our kids truly enjoy the characters in our hood: the $5 Guy and the Silverlake Walker; bearded and weirded hipsters; people with accents from England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, France, and, uh, New Orleans and Milwaukee.

The way I look at this TV scenario is: it's the best we can do in the situation we're in. Once we get back to 4 West, we will cut the junk from his visual diet. Promise.

Pablo is doing fine today. He is more a surgery recovery patient this week than a cancer patient. The focus is on getting his body to return to a fully functioning state. This is pretty quiet business, mostly dependent on time and some medicine. So no major news to report. Each team has been through here - Surgery, Oncology, Pediatrics, Pain Management - and they are all happy with Pablo's surgery recovery. I am hoping we can get the tube out of his nose today. The surgeons have ordered it clamped; they want to see how he gets on with no stomach ventilation. If he does well, they will remove it. This is the first time P has come out of the O.R. with the tube still down his nose. Prior to this, our focus was on eliminating I.V.s and the electronic sensors that are placed on his chest and back. Compared to the stomach vent, those other things are not worth worrying about. They don't inhibit P's movement or speech. He has been laying on his back, not really moving or talking, since Monday. I attribute his rigidity to the nose tube. If the head can't move, the body lies dormant. Except if you're in a bad horror movie. Makes me appreciate the way it used to be (last week).

It's 2 p.m. Sometime between now and 8, Dr Mascarenhas will find us and pull me and Jo Ann into a private room to brief us on the pathology of the left tumor.

I will check in again once we're settled.