Home!

My sweet Dylan is home!  

After 18 days, two hospitals, an ambulance ride, two surgeries, two procedures, dozens of doctors, two MRIs, two eco-cardiograms, several ultrasounds and x-rays, 3 IVs, a picc-line, and a whole lot of blood tests - Dylan is finally home.  (This whole time Dennis has been saying "Man, I'm glad we've got good insurance!"  If you need better insurance, I know a guy.)

We are all back under the same roof, the roof of home, and I finally feel whole again.  Up until now I felt like I was being torn in two.  When I was with Dylan at the hospital, I missed my kids and worried about them, and when I was at home, I hated that I was not at Dylan's side.  And Dennis, well, we have just seen each other in passing for almost 3 weeks.  How I missed that man!  We needed each other so much during this crisis, but Dylan needed us more.  That's what it means to be a family, and that is why being back together again is so sweet.

Dylan is happy to be home too.  He is back, our same funny sweet Dylan, back at home, and back to being himself - laughing, chatting, threatening to beat up his twin brother as soon as he is able.  I can see how coming home really is the best medicine!

It has been a very long day trying to get that kid home.  I left at 8 am to go to Loma Linda.  We had to wait for this and wait for that.  Then we needed a last visit by the physical therapist, the occupational therapist, and a few doctors.  An at-home nurse came to teach us all about the picc-line and train us how to administer the IV antibiotics.  It was all really overwhelming for me. Then we had to wait on some paperwork, wait for a delivery of meds, and then fill another prescription, but that prescription was for pills, and Dylan can't swallow pills, so he had to have it compounded in liquid form, which take 90 minutes, but not until it was approved by the insurance company, which took an additional 90 minutes, and so on.  At 4pm we finally got out of the hospital and packed all the stuff into a small car, when I realized we were already a half hour late for his medication, so we had to unpack the car to get the meds and the instructions so we could give Dylan his IV, then get all packed in the car to go home.  It was pouring rain and the traffic was really backed up due to the holiday weekend.  We didn't get home until after 6.  My kids, my parents, and my sister, Mindy's family, all the way from Oregon, were here to welcome him home.  Dylan was the center of attention, and he loved it.

As glad as I am to have that kid home, the reality of what that will mean to the operations of our family are beginning to sink in, and I am feeling overwhelmed.  Dylan came home with a wheelchair, a walker, and crutches, so he is pretty much set with getting where he needs to go.  We also got 3 large boxes of IV meds, syringes, and other medical supplies I will need to use everyday, and a lot of instructions.  Whoa!  

Here is the breakdown.  This is life for the next 12 weeks, mind you.  (It is 12 weeks, because the infection is in his bone, and it is really tough to eradicate when it is in the bone.)

 Dylan has 3 antibiotics.  One is every 12 hours, one is every 8 hours, and one is every 6 hours.  They each take about an hour to administer, and only one can be administered at a time.  (Sounds like a math problem, doesn't it?) Each time, at the appointed hour, I have to wash my hands really good, put on gloves, sterilize the IV junction with an alcohol wipe for 30 seconds (that is a lot longer than you'd think) then you have to attach a syringe of saline and pump that in, then you have to attach the IV medicine, unclamp it, and let it do its thing.  After the hour, you have to unhook it, clean it with the alcohol again, flush it with another syringe of saline, and then another syringe of heparin, which keeps the line from clogging, and clamp it, then Dylan is good to go until the next IV is due.  It isn't too complicated and I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but right now I am just a bit nervous about doing something wrong.

Here is his IV schedule: 5 am, 8am, 11am, 4pm ,5pm ,11pm, and 12 midnight. Plus oral medicine twice a day.   I'm thinking those 4 and 5 pm ones are going to be great - right in the middle of that crazy homework/prepare dinner/practice piano/taekwondo time.  Oh and the 11pm, midnight and 5 am are going to be fun too.  Remember that means I have to stay up until 11 to give the IV, and then midnight to do another one, and then wait up another hour, until 1am, to unhook it when it is done.  Then be back up at 5 to do it again, go swim fast so I can be back at 6am to unhook that one.  Got it?  I still don't.  Yes, I am a bit overwhelmed right now trying to figure out how I am going to fit this into our crazy family schedule for the next 12, that is twelve, as in a dozen, more weeks; that is 84 days; 3 full months; a quarter of a year; all winter long!

The great thing is that Dylan will be able to sleep right through all of it.  Not me.  I think it will be like when you have a newborn and you don't get adequate sleep for 3 months, and you look so... pretty and feel so... energized.  We moms try hard to forget that stuff, but its all coming back to me right now.

Right now it is 10:55 pm.  I am trying to prop my eyes open to wait for 11 so I can administer the IV.  I am exhausted.  I am NOT a night person.  Dennis is fast asleep on his own bed after sleeping in a chair for the last several nights, poor guy, and I am not about to wake him up to do it.  I'd really like to be in bed next to him for once, but alas, that will have to wait.

We also will have a home nurse come once a week to change the dressing and draw blood.  We need to get a physical therapist and a home studies teacher, and we will be making lots of trips back to Loma Linda for follow-ups.  

BUT, that is all infinitely better than him being in the hospital far from home.  He is happier, and is feeling better, and that makes me so much happier and feel so much better, myself.

The fear of the unknown, the excruciating pain, the loneliness and longing for home - those are all gone, swept away, when we stepped (or in Dylan's case, hobbled) through the door of our home.

Home is the miracle cure, the balm that soothes the wounded body and soul.  And for that we have so much to be thankful.