On Saturday I took Jamie fishing in Hampshire with his godfather Charlie. 

Marta was with Isita, her sister Bego and brother Juan who had heroically flown over from Seville on Friday night. Thanks mostly to my own incompetence I didn’t catch anything, but Jamie went swimming at least three times and had to have his clothes dried out in the plate-warming oven. It felt wonderful to be on the banks of a trout stream with some of my oldest friends and their children. 

Even better was when Marta called to say that Isita’s adenovirus level had fallen to just over 800 copies/ml of blood. This is such a good fall, that it has raised the doctors’ hopes that she may be able to eradicate the virus without needing further medication. 

Let’s hope that is the case because on Sunday morning the diarrhoea came back. We have been contending with it over the past two days. It remains a puzzle in that we do not know what has caused it, and this is massively stressful because it makes us unpick everything we have done with Isita, such as taking her out of the hospital, to see whether it is something we could have prevented or could prevent in the future. Is it somehow our fault? 

The doctors say no and that is probably right. We are trying to take as much care as possible but it is not easy. Isita is hungry and full of energy. It is hard to restrain her from eating too much or too quickly, particularly as we have spent the past five months begging her to eat whatever she wants.

One thing we do know – which is good news – is that Isita’s upset stomach is certainly not caused by the adenovirus,. This means that this new onset ought not to stop the virus load falling. We will learn whether that is the case very soon..