something like ten days. He had weighed only about forty pounds to begin
with, and now he had melted away so that his elbows and knees appeared
abnormally large, his face thin like a hungry orphan.
After the surgery, I brought our concerns to Dr. O’Holleran. “He hasn’t
eaten more than a little Jell-O or broth in almost two weeks,” I said. “How
long can a kid go without eating?”
Dr. O’Holleran placed Colton in the intensive care unit and ordered extra
nutrition for him, administered through a feeding tube. But the ICU bed was
as much for us as for Colton, I suspect. We hadn’t slept for nearly as long
as Colton hadn’t eaten, and we were absolutely ragged. Putting Colton in
ICU was the only way the doctor could get us to go get some rest.
“Colton will be fine tonight,” he told us. “He’ll have his own nurse at all
times, and if anything happens, someone will be right there to take care of
him.”
I have to admit, those words sounded like an oasis in a desert of
exhaustion.
We were afraid to leave Colton alone, but we knew Dr. O’Holleran was
right. That night was the first night since leaving the Harrises’ home in
Greeley that Sonja and I spent together. We talked. We cried. We
encouraged each other. But mostly, we slept like shipwreck survivors on
their first warm, dry night.
After a night in the ICU, Colton was moved to yet another hospital room,
and the wait-and-see cycle began all over again. When can Colton get out
of here? When can we go home and be normal again? Now, though,
Colton’s bowels seemed to have stopped working. He couldn’t use the
bathroom, and hour by hour, he grew more miserable.
“Daddy, my tummy hurts,” he moaned, lying in bed. The doctor said that
even if Colton could pass gas, that would be a good sign. We tried walking
him up and down the halls to shake things loose, but Colton could only
shuffle along slowly, hunched over in pain. Nothing seemed to help. By the
fourth day after the second surgery, he could only lie on the bed, writhing as
constipation set in. That afternoon, Dr. O’Holleran came with more bad
news.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I think we’ve
done everything for Colton we can do here. We’re thinking maybe it would