The Next Time You Hear From Me, We'll Be At Home!

Hooray, we're going home today! Mae's PICC was placed this morning without any trouble and the physical therapist was just in here to go over some exercises with us that we can do at home. She is now walking around and bearing weight on her right ankle and knee without any problems. The Infectious disease doc (doctor W.) was just in and talked to me about the bullshit regarding the cancelled PICC placement and fasting. He was furious that we had to stay an extra day just because the radiology department couldn't get their crap together. He encouraged me to call patient relations and give them all the details about her not being able to eat, the third IV line and frustration from yesterday. With his encouragement I will be in contact with patient relations to let them know about my frustrations regarding scheduling tests and general slowness around here. This is a great hospital but I think that there could be some improvement made in the way of parent/ medical personnel communication. It's been a lot of wait and see type stuff.

Mae's next antibiotic treatment (the first one using the PICC) will be at 1:00 and after that we will be discharged but figuring in "hospital time" we probably won't be out of here until at least 3:00. The home care nurse will come to the house tonight to deliver the medication, supplies and medication pump. She will walk us through the first dose and show us how to flush the line and care for the whole works. Mae will still be on the every 6 hour dosing schedule. 7 PM, 1AM, 7Am, 1PM and so on for 4 weeks. The home nurse will come once a week to change the dressing and blood draws which will all happen right through the PICC, no more pokes! We have an appointment to see her pediatrician on Thursday and every week after until it is determined that she doesn't need the penicillin antibiotic anymore. The ID doc was thinking that in 2 weeks she may be able to switch to an oral antibiotic (Clindamycin) if everything goes well and the infection clears up.

I talked to The Gardener this morning and he's just as thrilled as we are that we'll be coming home today. He has been a busy man preparing for our arrival home this afternoon. He washed, dried and folded many loads of laundry, vacuumed the whole house, washed and put away all of the dishes and everything else that I normally take care of including caring for Binny on his own the last several days. What a great husband I have!

Still no word on when Mae will be able to go back to school (again the communication here kinda sucks) but I spoke with her teacher yesterday who plans to send some work home to keep Mae busy until she can return to her class. I'm not concerned about Mae being behind academically, she does very well in school and I plan to continue the same type of lessons at home.

That's all for now, I'll hopefully update tonight after we get settled in at home. I'll have to do something to keep myself occupied while waiting to give the 1 Am dose!