We're in somewhat of a family crisis here. My older son, on his way home for spring break, has ended up in the hospital instead. Since picking him up at the bus station on Friday evening, I've accompanied him through two ERs, an ambulance, and finally a third-floor double in Lewiston, where he's on massive IV doses of antibiotics for a severely abscessed throat. They won't discharge him until the medicine shows some signs of working, which, as of yesterday at noon, it hadn't. Late in the afternoon, Tom drove down to relieve me so that I could come home and take a shower and change out of my clothes and sleep, which I hadn't done for more or less 24 hours. And when I arrived, bleary and shellshocked, the 9th-grader poured out a glass of wine, put me on the couch under a blanket, decided I should watch some college basketball, and presented me with a lovely macaroni dinner. He also did the dishes.

We're hoping that J can be discharged today, but either the abscesses need to show signs of coming to a head (so that the doctor can lance them) or shrinking away. This is not just what we'd all planned for spring break but at least we're getting spend some time with him. . . .