After a wonderful day yesterday, last night was a polar opposite. At shift change (7-8 pm)they kick you out of the room both for your sakes and for theirs. The told us that they gave Matthew a bath and that he was doing very well . . . we walked in anticipating another great night but it ended up as one of the hardest moments I have ever had to bare in my life. I don't know if it was pain, medication, ICU delirium, frank psychosis or what but Matthew was miserable. He cried and wiggled in agony for 4 hours. Non stop. Inconsolable. He kept saying: meemaaa, deedaa, I'm scared and Owe, oweee, oweee. It was the single worst thing that I have ever seen in my life. It took two hours for them (although it felt like an eternity) to get a senior urologist up there to place a foley catheter (The jr. on call didn't know what she was doing). The staff didn't know what to do. I finally lost it and didn't know what to do. I have never seen anything like it in the 10 years that I have been doing medicine. It gave new meaning to thought of God watching his son suffer in Gethsemane. It was unbelievable. I was holding him, Chrissy was holding him, Nurses were holding him down and it wasn't working. Tears were falling out of my eyes as he kept yelling for me and chrissy and we consistently kept telling him that we were there. It was like he was trapped in another dimension.

It got so bad that I had to call for backup. Thank goodness for Parents, Older brothers, and Sister-in-laws. I could not have made it through last night without them there. I cannot imagine Hell being anything worse than last night.

He remained inconsolable and the nursing staff asked us all to leave about midnight. Somehow, she was able to focus his attention on some crazy midnight cartoon on the Disney channel. The rest I don't even really want to know because I was either leaving the hospital of going to be in the trailer. Physically and emotionally I was spent. Between the steroids, anti-rejection meds, pain meds, lack of sleep and food. Matthew Jr. must be out of his mind . . . literally. I haven't been in his room yet today and I am a little bit scared. I hope he has ended his "bad trip" and found his way back to earth.

I just want to thank everyone for following the blog. It sure saves us from answering the same questions over and over again. It is a roller coaster adventure that changes direction without any warning. We know that Matthew is in the Lord's hands and that this will only be a moment in his eternal existence. It is still hard.