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It's 5:30 PM and

It's 5:30 PM and Dustin doesn't want to be bothered by anyone else. No nurses, no doctors, no visitors. Only his dad is welcome. Well, I back again after a quick interruption by Dr. Boldt. Actually, I don't consider it an interruption, as he speaks English and can fill in the gaps for me.

We've had a busy day. It started off well. He ate a little breakfast, we did some school work. The pain in his knee keeps him from standing, but we managed to give him a shower, sitting on a chair as usual. He had visitors from Shell for a few minutes. I had him out of bed, sitting up and reading for a bit, and then he spent some time sitting up on my bed. Just sitting on a different bed was a good change of pace for him. Then after lunch Mike came by with his dad, and they played a game of backgammon and chess. I could tell Dustin was getting worn out, as he was ready for a nap before they even got here. Just after they left, his friend Craig, from Shell, came by with his dad. They were up for the day and had gone to the bullfights. Dustin perked up a bit to see his classmate.

After all the visitors he told me his temp was going up. Sure enough, it was 38.8 (101.6) so we knew we had to tell the nurses so they could draw some blood. What a fiasco. One of them dropped and broke a thermometer on the floor. Two guys couldn't get blood, so they had a nurse try. She managed to get about 2cc after a long time and much wiggling of the needle. Poor Dustin! He was so brave, and put up with a lot, and only shed a few tears. They even had to come back and get blood one more time, because they need to samples from different sites. It went much better that last time. We started counting how many times he's been poked, and it's a least a dozen times in the past six days. And this is the same kid we had to literally hold down to give the vaccinations when we came to Ecuador in July 2000. He's come a long way!

So now it's the end of the day. Dinner is here and I'll try and feed him a few bites, which is all he'll want. I hope to get him up in a wheel chair for a bit, and also do a bit of physical therapy with him. I think homework will be out of the question, but the teacher in me can always hope. In the morning I actually thought we might be in Shell on Monday. Now I'm not so sure. If the fever doesn't go down soon, the doctor will need to clean his knee out again. Thanks for your prayers.