Friday, March 16 (10:40pm)

It’s finally quieted down around here and what a long day it’s been. I know how tired Mom and I are, so Kerrie has got to be 10 times as exhausted. I really want to get this post on here, so I’ll try not to fall alseep at the computer while I’m typing.

We got to the hospital around 10:00am and it’s been crazy ever since. There was a lot to do to get Kerrie ready, had to meet with the Henry Ford Home Health Care nurses, to go over Meds and when we got to NOMC we found out they were meeting us there! That took us a little by suprise as we thought we’d zip in, get Kerrie, zip out and be home by Noon. Enough time to relax before all the people who needed to see Kerrie started to arrive. Didn’t happen…

We finally left the hospital just before 2:00pm and as we were getting ready to go I said, “Kerrie, almost time to go home..” expecting a smile from her. What I got was a long, sad face and tears.. She was scared to come home, mostly because she’s afraid of having Mom and I as her nurses and not having a medical team nearby. Neither one of us would get upset by this… I suppose if I spent more than 8 months in a hospital I would become dependant on knowing there was always someone nearby who knew just what to do if something went wrong.

Finally got her downstairs and outside, but by that time Mom and I looked at felt liked we’d been run over.. and our patience was left sitting on a shelf, upstairs somewhere. The 5 minutes it took Mom to give me HORRIBLE hand signals on how to position the car.. and the 5 minutes it took me to tell her off from inside the car.. were probably the most stressful of the day ( Sorry Mom .. they WERE horrible hand signals.. but, I know.. I know.. if you were giving the signals to someone who had half a brain they wouldn’t have had such a problem.)

After our 5 minute stint where we were probably both losing our minds, Kerrie was wheeled out and it was time to get her into the car. She said goodbye to the staff, and you could almost hear the sadness in her voice.. but once we turned the corner and were on the road she just kept looking around and saying “Wow.. Wow.. Oh Wow…” I can’t imagine what it’s like to be inside for so long and then suddenly just driving down the road in a car.

We got her home, got her out of the car.. which was an adventure for Mom ( I stayed out of the way this time) and then it was time to take her inside the house. This new wheelchair they got her is supposed to be “Top of the line”, but the leg and foot rests give us a problem. You can’t lower them to a normal sitting position and you can’t move them out of the way far enough, so to get her in and out the chair we have to remove the legs.. and the get her into the house I have to run into the wall at least once :) 

We weren’t in the door more than 10 minutes when they guy from the medical supply company showed up and we let him know the issues with the fancy-smancy legs on the chair. She’ll probably have a new one by tomorrow.

Then the Henry Ford Home Health Care ladies showed up at the house and it was time to learn how to start the feeding tube, IV pumps, flush the IV lines, etc. This may be old hat to Nurse Mom, but I was a little overwhelmed by it. Well, I have three days to learn this with Mom at my side.. next weekend I’m on my own!

We FINALLY got things calmed down a little after 6:00pm and then Mom put me to work. We can’t put any food of Kerrie’s in the fridge until it’s been disinfected.. so guess who got to disinfect the entire fridge? Yeah.. I slaved away for two hours while Mom sat on the couch and at bon-bons.

OK… maybe she didn’t really eat Bon-Bons.. maybe it just looked that way. I suppose pouring over medical charts and trying to find out what medications Kerrie needs next and which doses we missed ( oops!) need to be doubled up on the next dose, and calling the BMT team to find out what to do about missing one of those doses could LOOK like you were sitting on the couch, eating bon-bons while your daughter was on her hands and knees scrubbing the fridge 🙂

And what was Kerrie doing during all of this? Sleeping :)  It took her a while to be able to get to sleep, which surprised me because she’d been up in her chair for several hours today.. but maybe it’s hard to sleep when your hospital bed is in the middle of the living room.. and you haven’t been in your living room in months and months. She woke up once and wasn’t exactly sure where she was.. so, I’m calling dibs on the couch tonight. That way, someone’s close by when she wakes up and is a little confused.. and it will be easier for me to wake up at 1:30am & 5:00am & 6:00am to help Mom give Kerrie her medications.

Welcome home Kerrie. We love you and are so happy that you are finally back here. Tomorrow we have to look for that leprachaun. That pot o’ gold would be a great thing right about now don’t ya think ? 

Hmmm.. I wonder if she remembers our St. Patty’s day Leprachaun hunts when we were little? I’ll have to ask her tomorrow