Monday, January 17, 2011

Home Sweet Home...

We are home.

Yes, home sweet home.

After a long 12 days hospitalized,
6 days of high-spiking fevers,
an abdominal CT scan under anesthesia,
 loads of bloodwork, a peripheral IV draw,
a painful sterile bladder catheterization,
an abdominal ultrasound,
4 days of blood cultures,
5 urine bag catches,
a dozen nights of Mommy & William sleeping in a cramped hospital crib,
2 liver doppler ultrasounds,
a scary bleeding stomach and j-site for three days,
the realization of the wonders of Toradol,
a special 5-day visit from Aunt Angie,
uncountable assaults by nurses, residents and specialists at all hours of the day,
consults with 3 Infectious Disease physicians,
one very scary Sunday night,
a clotted central line and an emergency TPA clot-buster crisis (which fortunately worked after a 2-hour dwell, thank god!)
3 nights of vital sign monitoring,
an injection of radioactive gallium,
two days of nuclear scanning under anesthesia,
bilateral bone marrow aspirations with bone marrow cultures,
12 days of round-the-clock attachment to an IV pole,
dozens of blood pressure checks on each and every extremity,
an unknown appearing and disappearing rash,
countless laps around the 11th and 12th floors of the children's hospital,
a brief Reiki session
dozens of freebie samples of mint ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery,
numerous mistakes made by hospital staff,
plenty of William kisses blown to nurses and other "babies"

....a mile-long list of conditions that have been ruled-out NOT to be the reason for William's fevers and still no answer for the fevers....yes, we are out! 
Finally... out.

Nicholas, Aunt Angie and Grammy welcomed us with a precious banner.


We celebrated this afternoon with a cupcake party! 
William poked his, with an occassional lick of frosting.

Nicholas gobbled up his cupcake, yakked up a storm the entire time in his super-excited "outdoor voice" and spontaneously got the three of us engaged in a Nicholas-original game of hang gliding, using laundry baskets held over our heads while wildly running around the house.
 
Oh yes, and William just had to have some coffee to celebrate!
Thanks Grammy for the replenished decaf supply!



2 comments:

FastFreddy said...

..there was a daddy who brought Nicholas up to the hospital daily, put him on the bus, fed him, bathed him, and kept the house in order. -Ghost #6

Lexi said...

Sounds like an incredibly trying time! So glad you are back home, with all the comforts that home brings... I'll be baking you another batch of cookies this weekend and shipping them along, this time NOT using our local postal carrier, seeing as he's proven to be pretty unreliable! I'm glad your sister got to come up and visit you, too! Sending you lots of love and well wishes!