Rain-out

Oh, the anticipation! The home team was in the park early, warming up at 6 a.m. The steroids were in place (hmmm...this analogy has possibilities). The pain medicine was backed off to make sure the star player would be in the lineup and alert for the big moment. The expert analysts had given their predictions - victory by 1 pm. The crowd had taken their seats, filled their cups and smuggled in the pretzels. It was showtime.

And then, after waiting for 12 hours, the umpires huddled and declared a rain-out. "Everyone please come back tomorrow - your tickets will still be good (but you will have to pay for parking again)."

Yes, we were all ready for Drew to awaken, put on a show of determined athletic prowess guaranteed to overwhelm even the most experienced competition, and leap from his MICU bed tube-free. But, after waiting until 6 p.m., the medical team huddled and decided to wait another day. They had held his pain medicine, sedation medicine, and feeding all day, and he only managed a few hand squeezes and head bobs and eye battings and a 10 pound weight loss. While his blood pressure and respiration rate doubled, he never really woke up enough to be extubated, and he developed a fever in the process high enough to call the game.

Tests overnight will determine a cause for the fever, but chances are we will again gather in 8208 and take another run at the game of waking, breathing on his own, and talking. The crowd will be in place - sorry, but it's a sellout.

(Editor's note: regular readers may have noticed we have not used any current pictures of Drew recently. You may never see them. However, we look forward to his return to extubated allogeneic photogeneity - gosh, this medical language thing is contagious!)