We are HOME! And Colby is doing GREAT! And I'm a very HAPPY mama! Of course Colby's recovery is going to be long and slow. Also, it will definitely takes a few days for me to get stuff caught up around here. But let me repeat, we're HOME, and that's the best news I could possibly share/blog with everyone.
The ambulance showed up 10 minutes early on Thursday. Actually they had to wait for us a few minutes to finish up Colby's cough treatment, I needed to sign the discharge papers, etc. We had the same dudes we had the last time we rode home from Cincy in an ambulance. Weird, huh? I remember them because one of them is a very large man (okay, he's fat) with the personality of a doorknob, and the other was a very nice, smiley older man. Luckily Doorknob was the driver and Smiley rode in the back with Colby and me. We had given Colby a dose of valium for the ride home and he did fabulous. I was hoping he would take a little nap in the ambulance, but nope, that wasn't happening.
Then the we've-been-gone-over-two-weeks-now-we're-home madness began. My dad, mom and stepdad came over and brought all the stuff from the hospital. When Colby was in the hospital, he was in contact isolation for MRSA and respiratory contact for pseudomonas. This means that when we are discharged they throw out EVERYTHING in that room. It's unusable because of the isolation precautions. So anything that we're able to use here at home (catheters, saline bullets, syringes, many other items) we packed up and brought home with us. That's one good thing about having a hospital admission, you get lots of extra supplies to use at home. I had a nurse scheduled to be here at 3:00. But wait, it's not that simple. The nursing agency here in town has to "discharge" Colby when he goes in the hospital. When he's discharged from the hospital, the nursing agency has to send out the Director of Nursing to do a resumption of care. Major pain in the patootie. But we jump through the hoops to get the care that Colby needs, don't we? Once we got all that out of the way, the unpacking, organizing, settling in began. And that's what I've been doing ever since it seems.
We had no nurse scheduled yesterday. Can you believe that crap? Long story that deals with one of Colby's nurses failing to communicate and also a goof up on the nursing agency's part. Whatever. Colby's dad stopped by on his way to work and helped me get Colby changed and repositioned. Then my mom did the 10AM to 1PM "shift". She helped me get a lot of housework done. God love her, she is a tiny cleaning dynamo. Colby's speech therapist came and hung out with us during the 1PM to 4PM "shift". We worked on trying to get Colby's eye gaze up and running. No luck. She was nice enough to take it with her to work on it. I just won't have time the next few days to fart around with it - call the company, have them talk me through various things to try, etc.
So it'll be more of the same over the weekend. Take care of sweet boy. Yesterday he sat up in his chair twice, 30 minutes each. Today we'll shoot for sitting up twice, 35 minutes each. We have nursing during the days, and I have friends who were nice enough to volunteer and come spend the night with us. I don't think Colby will have any trouble overnight, but just in case he needs repositioned or changed, I will need help with that since Colby is on log roll precautions during his surgery recovery. Going to try and get to the grocery while the day nurse is here. That'll be my big outing for the day.
Time to make Colby's formula and figure out his feeding schedule for the day. He's not quite ready for bolus feedings. Well, actually he probably is, but I'm taking things nice and slow. No use taking any chances of that tummy of his. Maybe I'll even get in a nap. Yeah right. For some reason that just isn't happening around here. That boy of mine is high maintenance!
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