We Are Home!

We arrived home just about 45 minutes ago. The home health nurse is on her way to bring Ethan's antibiotics and PICC line dressing supplies. Ethan is SO happy! He has been all smiles and very animated since we talked to him about going home today. I didn't mention it earlier to him just in case it didn't happen. Anyway, he is very good with dragging his oxygen tubing around the house and becomes very distressed when it gets pulled off of his face. He is talking more than I've heard in the last 2 weeks.

On similar news, med time is MUCH easier since we switched him to pills. Yes, that's right, pills. I noticed that he wouldn't chew his chewable Tylenol and would just swallow them whole. So we switched his other medications to pills and he does FANTASTIC! We had to pay for all new prescriptions, but oh well. It will be SO much easier on all of us at med time.

Also, prior to discharge today, they had to move Ethan's PICC line out 2 centimeters. To do this they had to take off the sterile dressing, take out the stitches holding it in place, re-stitch it where they wanted it, and then clean and re-dress it. Ethan SCREAMED during this procedure. They had the music therapy people come as a comfort and as a distraction, and although they helped, it was still a traumatizing procedure. They also told me that they would use Lidocaine to numb the area before they stitched it, but if any of you have ever had that, it BURNS (and this is on the inside part of his upper arm, OUCH). My poor guy. We thought we were done will all of the ouchie stuff. Needless to say, he is happy to be home!

We have to go back in one week for lab work, EKG, another chest x-ray, and to see the Cardiologist. Hopefully everything will look good between now and then.

Thank you for all of your prayers. I am exhausted and hope to get a peaceful night's sleep (in between his middle of the night Vancomycin dose).

At least we are home. Sigh.

---Allison