OK. I'm back because I couldn't sleep.

Not for any particular reason. Just because I decided I'm not tired. Sigh. So I figured I'd go into a little more detail about my nephew, Tommie.

That's him in the picture. Right now, we're just hoping he can hang on to life. He's been living in hell for months now, and it's not getting any better. I'm going to make this as short as possible, because if I get into all of the details, I'd seriously still be writing this post tomorrow morning.

OK. About a month and a half ago, he was admitted into the hospital for bleeding out of his rectum and severe abdominal pain. Now when I say bleeding, I mean bleeding. Like running down your legs, filling up buckets bleeding.

Anyway, they diagnosed him with colonitis, dosed him up with antibiotics and sent him home after a few days. He did ok for a few weeks, but the symptoms returned. Back to the ER, where the stupid f*cking jerks gave him some meds and sent him home the same night, even though he had blood running out the bottom of his pants legs and passed out from the pain he was feeling. Assholes. Every last one of them.

Three days later, he was admitted again. They did what they could, gave him pain meds, etc. FINALLY, after several days, they admitted they didn't know what else to do, and transferred him to a bigger, better children's hospital 90 minutes away. The specialists there were furious with the first hospital's actions and said if he hadn't been transferred the night he was, he'd be dead.

The new hospital diagnosed him with Crohn's Disease, and immediately began working on completely shutting down his colon, so it could rest and start fighting the infections that had developed. After a week or so, they did a cat scan and rushed him into surgery to open him up and see what they were dealing with. They cut out some of the infected areas of his colon, found several perforations of his colon and fixed those, and managed to reattach everything, preventing him from needing a colectomy, where he'd need a bag.

All of our hopes were up, thinking he'd avoided the worst, and that now, it was just a matter of healing and moving on. He was starting to do much better... was up walking around, was in better spirits, etc.

But the very next day (this past Friday), he was in hideous pain again. They did another cat scan, and immediately rushed him into surgery again. This time, they couldn't avoid it, and had to attach two bags to him. They said the bags would be on for at least 3 months, and then they'd re-evaluate the situation to see if they could reattach his colon again, or if the bags would be permanent. We were all pretty upset, but figured we'd all deal with it.

Now Tommie still hasn't really woken up from that first surgery. They couldn't close the incisions from the surgery for a bunch of reasons. He had more perforations... one of his lungs collapsed during surgery... he was filled with fluid... etc. So they left him open and have had him knocked out and on a ventilator since then. The plan was to close him up today at 1:00 PM and see how he did.

But when they took him in for surgery, they found that instead of getting better, he was getting worse. The infections are still spreading... both lungs were filled with fluid and so now, they're draining those too, which involves more tubes... his insides are SO swollen from the infections, that they probably couldn't put everything back inside if they wanted to right now... they even had to scrape some infection off of his ribs...

So now, we wait. We wait and we pray. They still haven't closed him up, so he's still knocked out and on the ventilator. He has tubes and bags and drainage everywhere you look. They're waiting until Thursday, when they'll again, check him out and PRAY that the infection has stopped spreading, so he can begin to heal. If it doesn't stop spreading, I don't know what will happen, but it's heartbreaking to even think about it.

He's like the son we never had. He idolizes Steve in ways that surprise even me. He's big into hunting and fishing, and him and Steve go hunting and fishing together all the time. For awhile, he slept over at our house every weekend, sometimes to wake up and go hunting and fishing with Steve, and other times, just because. That photo up there was taken on our back patio after Tommie caught that huge fish. He's a GOOD kid. Yes, he drove me nuts sometimes, as I imagine all teenagers do. And I used to get so pissed because he'd eat the last of all of my favorite foods when he slept over. But NO ONE deserves what he's going through right now. And especially a kid his age.

So if you could all just keep him in your thoughts and prayers, it would mean the world to us. Just pray he makes it through this and that we don't lose someone who is truly a light on this earth. Thanks guys.