7-31-01 Tu 10:45 AM

After running a tube up her nose, down her throat and into her stomach while we held her down kicking and screaming, the doctors left. I typed this yesterday. She mercifully passed out. Just like every other time she got to sleep, someone came in to poke or prod or otherwise subject her to some alien-abduction examination. None of them had any answers or ideas, and when they assured me she was stable, I finally threw them out. I told them to leave her alone and let her sleep. They said they'd come back in the morning. I slept on the cold tile floor next to the cot for a couple of hours. When morning, a guy introducing himself as Hans came in. His manner was more confidence-inspiring than the graveyard shift stooges', but he asked all the same questions we had already answered for everyone else. Finally, Dr. Huxtable McClaren came in, the head pediatric surgeon. He ordered another x-ray and barium enema. We had a woman radiologist this time who knew what she was doing. First try, she diagnosed intussusception which, they explained, is when the intestine telescopes in on itself and becomes blocked and tangled. On the next enema, we were able to see on the x-ray imager as the barium popped through the blockage. Hurray. We just had to hang around the hospital to make sure the vomiting had stopped and if she could poop. She did! Hallelujah! Then, it was a short eleven-hour wait while they got together discharge papers. 

I had an audition with Hollywood Squares in the afternoon. I probably botched it. My dad called in tears, saying that I needed to fax over my brother's case file to his lawyer in D.C. so that she could file a motion to have him released because he had had to tussle with some white-haters in that prison. My dad feared for my brother's life. I faxed it from Kinkos. Naturally there was a road-construction nightmare to be sweated, and I only just got to Hollywood Squares in the nick of time.