Worry

Right now I'm sitting in my son's hospital room, watching him sleep.
Zachary, 19, has been in the hospital since Tuesday night's trip to the emergency room.
What we thought was simply a nasty stomach virus, turned out to be much, much more.
It started with him feeling nauseous Sunday afternoon, and several episodes of vomiting throughout Sunday night. By Monday afternoon, the vomiting had stopped, only to be followed by diarrhea. The diarrhea continued, with the addition of gut-wrenching cramps over night. By Tuesday morning, his stools were mostly blood, the cramps continued, and he couldn't keep anything down. A trip to the doctor's office, and we left with a stool sample kit in case the bloody diarrhea continued into the afternoon, and advice to sip Gatorade. He couldn't keep any of it down and had been dashing to the bathroom every 12 minutes for nearly 3 hours.
A late afternoon call to the doctor ended with the advice to take him to the ER, as he likely was dehyrdrated.
We left for the ER around 7, and the triage nurse told us it would be a 3-hour wait. We stationed ourselves next to the bathroom, but he could hardly stand the pain; after 3 trips to the bathroom in 15 minutes, I went back to the nurse, told her what was going on, and that I didn't think he could wait. One look at him and she exclaimed, "You look white as a ghost!" She called her supervisor, and he was taken right into the ER, where we had more hurry up and wait.
More tests were ordered, history taken, IVs, pain meds.
He was moved to a surgical floor, taken to X-ray, pain meds adjusted.
He had severe colitis, but the cause was still unknown. They started him on vancomycin, as blood work indicated infection. The pain, the blood, the cramping all continued.
Finally on Thursday we had a definitive diagnosis: toxic E. coli and an infection called c. diff., both extremely dangerous infections. We couldn't trace his exposure to these bacteria to any foods, as the whole family had eaten together the past week. More antibiotics, more waiting.
It's unusual to have two of these infections at the same time, let alone in an otherwise healthy 19-year-old. So far, he seems to have escaped deadly side effects from either of the infections, though we aren't completely out of the woods yet.
Yesterday he felt quite a bit better and was put on a clear liquid diet and did some walking. Today is a bad day.
They had to stop his pain pump, as these pain meds (morphine, delaudid) slow the working of the intestines and he needed to get his GI system up and working again. He suffered from quite lot of pain again all day today as well as nausea and couldn't drink much more than sips of water, nor could he do much walking.
Needless to say, this has been an incredibly stressful time.
I wasn't prepared for him to feel worse today, and so can only hope tomorrow is better again.
These two bacteria are frighteningly powerful. The illness is horrifically painful.
We don't know yet when he'll be coming home, though it could still be 3 or 4 days at least.
I'm sitting here in the hospital watching him sleep, thinking about all he's been through, and hoping for a fast recovery.
It likely won't be fast, but I'll be so thankful when I can take him home again.