Home!

On Tuesday, the doctor let her know that barring any setback, she'd be cleared to go home on Wednesday. After the roller coaster that we've been on the last few months, I was a bit nervous about it and did my best not to even think about it. On Wednesday, the doctor checked her out and issued her discharge papers. It's a bit of a process to get discharged in that she needs to be disconnected from everything, and then go through her home medicines. I went over to the hospital and was able to meet with the nurse who was handling all of her home meds. We have a very large shopping bag worth of pills. Everything imaginable... and different instructions for everything. It took about an hour to go through all the instructions and get all of the info about home care. In addition to just the pills, we also learned how to check her blood sugar (and then give insulin shots depending on levels), and were setup with a home IV system. The US/Algeria game was on in the background as she was explaining everything, and I almost jumped out of my seat when Donovan scored that goal.
 
We made it home Wednesday and started getting settled in. With the combination of everything, she's a bit shaky and really doesn't have too much strength. I'm not sure if her feet got caught up on something or what happened, but somehow she tripped and fell in the kitchen. I was upstairs with the kid, and Anna's mom was downstairs with her. She banged her knee up pretty good, but other than that, didn't do any major damage. Sure would have been nice just to have a quiet night with no excitement, but I guess that wasn't meant to be.
 
Thursday was a quiet day with no doctor's appointments. It was the first time in ages that she had a day with no doctor's checking her out.
 
Friday she had her check up appointment and it turned out to be an all day event. They had the first part of the check up in the morning, then wanted to administer some fluids and other things. I think she was over there from about 10am-5pm, which is a pretty long day for anyone, but especially her these days. The doctor was pleased with her progress and likes the way things are looking.
 
The weekend was pretty quiet in terms of medical care. Normal routine of having someones family members around to help out with care, cooking, etc... TJ's been thrilled to have mom home. It was really nice to see him react when she first got in. She's moving pretty slow, and still has both the picc and port hooked up to her, so he really can't play too much with her, but at least they can be in the same room and watch TV or read or something.
 
All in all, things are moving forward and she seems to be on the right track here. She's on quiet a bit of meds, more than I can remember her being on in the past, but at least she's well enough to be home. The steroids definitely have the biggest impact at this point. She's on quite a bit, and it has a pretty rough impact on everything from sleep behavior, to moods, to eating, and really make her pretty shaky. Hopefully, those will start to taper off in a few weeks and then she'll be able to relax a little more.
 
It was nice to be home for a few nights this week, and actually have dinner in my own house and not out of a plastic container. We've all had to adapt to this new world that we live in, and we've made it this far. We know there will be some bumps in the road ahead... but, hopefully, the road ahead will be kinder to us than the road behind....