COLBY IS THE MLB MASTER

Our trip to Cincinnati Children's for Colby's MLB went just fine. It was my favorite word – uneventful. The whole adventure was over in 32 hours. Left at 11am Thursday, got home Friday night around 7pm. Actually everything went as smoothly as it could. For some reason, it seemed to take me forever to get us ready to leave Thursday morning. Just couldn't get my duckies all in a row. They had a bed available and waiting for Colby. We got settled into the TCC. Stayed really busy with admitting; going over meds, Colby's schedule, the procedure; meeting with nurse practitioners and doctors; actually keeping Colby's schedule halfway normal. We had one of our all-time favorite nurses, Shauna. She has been on the TCC for years now, and she's just really good at her job. I didn't have to worry about Colby as much with her taking care of him (insert big smiley face.) We even had a visitor! One of Colby's St. X buddies now goes to college at Xavier here in Cincy. I told him we were at Cincy Children's and he came to see us. So nice of him. That boy is going to go far. While other kids were doing beer bongs and getting stupid in Florida over spring break, he went to Mississippi to be a counselor at a special needs camp. Good for him! He's definitely going to make a difference in this world (he already does.) One day we'll be able to say, we knew him when he was just a goofy high schooler!

We had a super-weird respiratory therapist Friday night. I'm sorry, the man was just strange. It makes me very uncomfortable when, after meeting someone new, he/she immediately start telling me his/her life story. TMI, dude! He started telling me where he grew up, all the states and hospitals he was worked, his dad passed away 7 years ago, his grandkids, and on, and on. I'd give anything if some people had a freakin' mute button. Anybody else find that odd? But I was nice. Or as nice as I can get when I'm tired, stressed and somebody starts really getting on my nerves. I was so glad when he finally left our room! Colby was started on his TPN at midnight. Leave it to Colby to make a liar out of me! He had a super great night of sleep. His HR even dropped down below 70 a couple of times. Shaking my head. I was telling anybody that would listen that he's been having sleeping problems. More on that later. I think I've figured out something else about our home vents.

Let me tell you something – my sweet boy is amazing! He's such a trooper, such a go with the flow kind of kid. He did have some increased blood pressures while we were at the TCC, but hey, I probably did too! We were in surgery holding and my dad came over to say bye to Colby. He asked if they already gave Colby some med like Versed to calm him down. I started laughing and said uh, no, Colby is just that relaxed right now. Not me. I was a jumble of nerves. I don't care how “short” or “routine” his procedure was, when they take him back to surgery and his care of completely out of my hands, it's nerve-wracking. I tried not to let it show. Don't know how good of a job I did. The pulmonologist said Colby's airway looked “pristine.” Did you hear me?! Pristine! Take that, SMA! Airways looked good, trach stoma looked good. No need to make any changes in the size of Colby's trach. Easy peasy and so glad it's done for another couple of years.

Today was spent resting and unpacking from Cincy. The nurse and I also gave Colby a bath to get all the hospitalness off him. And yes, I watched Purple Rain every time I saw it on TV today. Colby has learned more about Prince in the last 4 days than he probably ever needed to know. The nurse today was trying to tell me stuff about Prince. That's extremely funny. I kept finishing his sentences for him or correcting him. Don't even go there, dude. I'm a huge Prince fan and I guarantee you're not going to tell me anything about him I don't already know. Just sayin'.

Time for bed. Even though our Cincinnati trip went well, it's always stressful. I woke up with a migraine and it took me most of the day to shake it. All better now, though. Nitey nite, blog readers.