Update

I'm typing this from the hospital room on my brand new laptop, which I am naming 'Silver Lining'.

Tyler is going to be okay in the long run. It's just another abdominal surgery. Just another major incision through his abdominal muscles, another week of excruciating pain, another month or so of building back to a normal state of health.

Yeah, he's a little ticked off. Depressed, too. I can understand why, although I try to cheer him up or at least annoy him enough to be a distraction.

Although I am one of the 99 percent of families who can't really afford two major surgeries in a year, with one requiring a round trip airline ticket bought at sky-high last minute prices, as well as housing, restaurant food, and a rental car for a week, I am glad this happened here. The more time I spend in a sensibly run health care system, the more I realize how incredibly flawed the hospital in Yakima, the entire health care system in fact. My child is sick, far from our family doctor and the hospital we are familiar with, and, ironically, that may have saved his life.