oooh, they make that in banana flavor?

matt has been home from the hospital since late tuesday afternoon, but has continued to have a fever and has been experiencing what we call "pain episodes," where for about 5 minutes a few times a day, he endures "the worst pain of his life." not so much fun. but matt says he'd rather endure a few brief minutes of intense pain than be in mild pain 24 hours a day. i guess it's a reasonable trade-off, but i wish it was one he didn't have to make and it seems like one he shouldn't have to make. the pain emanates from the part of his belly where the drain is still installed, siphoning off any fluid that accumulates in the area. the combined ill effects of the fever and the pain episodes finally forced him to call the hospital and he spoke to dr. callery and described his symptoms. dr. callery said, "i can't do medicine over the phone. come in to the ER." so matt, bekah, (who is visiting from wyoming for a long weekend) and i packed in to the dodge colt vista and drove to the downtown boston beth israel deaconess medical center emergency room, where, upon our arrival at 5:00pm, we were told that the paperwork was all ready to send matt back up to his traditional quarters on the ninth floor of the farr building, and that it would be just a short wait while they prepared a bed up there.

just so you know, in hospital-speak, "short wait" means 10 hours. bekah and i left around 2:30am and they still had not moved him upstairs. he had consumed two more barium shakes- this time they let him try a banana one, which matt said was almost tasty, and endured another CT scan. they also, once again, did not let him eat anything besides the barium shakes. he was wheeled up to farr 9 around 3:30 this morning and is now awaiting word of what is causing his pain and fever and how long this latest hospital stay might last. we're still perfecting our technique of calculating the hospital rate conversion factor (multiply the time they say by "Hx" to arrive at the actual time of discharge) but it looks like he should be out by labor day.