Friday, January 23, 2009

Friday Fever

We are at CHLA. Polly packed the bags, Jo Ann ran to pick up Grady at school. P, G and mommy raced to the ER, arriving around 3 p.m. I finished my afternoon meetings, grabbed take out for the fam from Malo, and got here round 7.

Our room on 4 East (about the only wing we haven't been on in this place) is ready. Pablo and I are waiting for the (incredibly slow) staff to give us the magic piece of paper that allows us to leave this area for our home turf upstairs. We must drive them nuts down here, cos we always walk up to the fourth floor to advocate and investigate. Otherwise, we'd be stuck in here til the wee hours.

To pass time, Grady and Pablo made music on Garageband, the recording program on his MacBook. When I got here, I joined in. That was fun. I've never used that program. I was really onto something - a late-70s Kraut synth kinda thing. Pablo was adding his own notes into the riff I was freestylin. We recorded five minutes of riffage and then it kind of exploded. We got bored and shut the computer.

This whole gig is a well-worn routine by now. It's been a while since Grady joined us for one of these check ins. He's going to sleep here with Jo Ann and P. It's exciting for Pablo to share this space with him. They have fun together. We're expecting to be here a minimum of 48 hours. That's the rules for a fever. A bunch of other factors will come into play, such as P's blood counts. If he is scraping bottom, it's unlikely that Dr M will discharge him. He feels - and we agree - that it' best to have Pablo building back up in an environment where he can get a constant flow of antibiotics, white blood boosters, and, if needed, transfusions.

I think I hear the nurse coming to hand us our papers. Will check in tomorrow.

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