3 February 2015- 11:38 PM

We learned today that the reason they have not put the drain in is because they want Alisa to have 24 hours without a fever.  She has had one every night.

They decided to do another CT scan to see if they could identify a reason for the fevers.  The blood cultures have come back negative for the last 3 days (meaning there is no bacteria in the blood causing the fevers) and no outward sign of an infection.  They think the fevers might be related to the tumor, which would allow them to put in the drain.

We thought maybe they would do it tomorrow.

I left the hospital around 4:00 to go down for Sam and Luke's parent teacher conferences.  I made it about 5 minutes when I got a call from Alisa saying they were in her room ready to take her to get the drain placed.  I turned around and came back.

I waited in the room for about 30 minutes when the nurse came in and said to go downstairs.  They want to show me how the drain works.  To my surprise they hadn't even started.  They walked me into the room and asked me to sit down, just in case I fainted.  Then they started the procedure.  The doctor, the nurse just called him Chak (sounded like chalk, but he was from India, or that part of the world, so I picked my own spelling) started sticking needles and drains in her back, and they let me watch.  It was fascinating.  He talked about how he does training for other doctors on how to do this procedure, because he does it with just local anesthesia while most other doctors do it under general anesthesia.  I can see why they get nervous, he kind of manhandled Alisa's back, but she seemed to do just fine (she is exceptionally tough).  I didn't pass out.

We drained 1 liter of fluid, and he told us to drain 1 liter every day until we don't get 1 liter, then every other day.

It hasn't really reduced Alisa's pain, but she is breathing better.

I blame it on my optimism, but I think we might go home tomorrow.  We will see.

- Josh