Last night's down-the-throat-with-a-scalpel procedure brought the boy to his lowest point yet. Despite the high-tech atmosphere of the hospital, the ordeal bore considerable resemblance to the scenes depicted on Puritan-era woodcuts of apothecaries at work. After a bad night, punctuated by morphine and misery, the doctor decided to put J under general anesthesia, remove the tonsils, and scrape the infection out of the throat walls. This, thank goodness, seems to have been the solution. J came out of surgery hungry, cheerful, and relieved. It looks as if we might manage to get discharged tomorrow, and then this blog can return to its regularly scheduled, non-medical-emergency programming.