Happy November 1

Yes, I am home.  I slept in my own bed.  I am sitting at a desktop computer not trying to wrangle a laptop in a hospital bed without pulling out any wires or tubes.

After my tiff yesterday, things moved quickly.  I had a nurse I had never had before.  He was... interesting? He did an excellent job of helping us gather stuff for discharge and was very attentive.  Just a little, um, scattered.  He did not rearrange my room for better feng shui so there is that.

Kelly made too many trips down to the car.  How much crap did we manage to accumulate in that little hospital room?   We had the portable suction device.  We had the food pump, bags, cans of food, syringes, mouth sponges, and dozens of other things.  Eight, yes, eight prescriptions.

One of the doctors came to change my trach from stitched to collared.  I had to get back in bed for this. Kelly helped me take off my slippers and lie down.  She said, "Wow" and then, "I'm sorry, I come from a country where men don't really do much."  Interesting.  She took the stitches out (the most pain-free stitch removal all stay) and put the collar on.  It is a velcro collar that wraps around my neck and keeps the trach in place.  Since I have a fairly small neck, I have a big flap of extra velcro hanging off.  Yes, a little dog collar like.

Once I signed all the papers, we walked out.  I don't know that I've ever had a wheelchair ride out of the hospital, ever.  Maybe when Karina was born, but I'm not sure.  Interesting contrast between stay here for 16 days, but now walk to your car.  I'm good with that.

I slept most of the way home, thankfully.  I had to beg Kelly to get himself something to eat.  He doesn't want to eat in front of me.  Well, it is going to be a long time of that, so we both need to just get over it.  He just needs to eat stuff that smells really good.  Or not.  There was nothing about that Burger King that got my salivary glands going.

Once home we had to await the arrival of the medical supply company, who brought more stuff than they landed at Normandy with.  The equipment is not quite as high tech as the hospital stuff.  Pretty much noisy. The oxygen heater/humidifier sounds like a air compressor for tires.  The suction pump is loud.  The food pump is not loud, but makes and interesting almost clock like grinding.  It does, however, have a deafening shriek when it has and issue or is finished.

There is stuff stacked everywhere.  The counter looks like a drug store.  At five + cans of food a day, I shudder to think about what a month's supply will look like when it arrives.

Did I mention our bedroom is not very large?  Once you put all the stuff in there, there is not an inch to spare.  I think the dog is going to have to sleep somewhere else for awhile, at least until some of this equipment moves on.  I can't imagine a giant dog bed on top of all of this.

I fielded the first trick or treater of the night while Kelly was picking up prescriptions.  Pretty sure this kid did not know what to make of me.  Good thing he was older. Kelly was home before a troop of my Spring Creek kids came through.  I know I would have freaked them out.

Angie took Karissa trick or treating and they had a great time.  She ended up being Belle, which was cute and warmer than a ballerina.  She didn't flinch when she saw me.  Clearly she was well prepped.  She did say my face looks funny, which it does.  It will get better as the swelling goes down.  Using my cap, I could say thanks and I love you and she could figure that out.  She was good about reading the magnadoodle, but clearly some sort of either ASL or text to talk is going to be necessary since I won't be making too many sounds for awhile.  Since they couldn't spare any of my tongue, there is some question as to how much I will be able to make.  We'll see.

We all went off to bed and there were no issues with the feeding last night.  It isn't stroganoff, but I don't usually have to taste it, so it doesn't matter.  The only issue was when it finished there was some kick back when the pump was shut off .  I guess I should take the fact that I can taste that as a good thing.  I really hate waking Kelly up in the middle of the night.  I can't go all night without suction or Tylenol.  I don't know when he last got any decent sleep.

There was some confusion after my last post.  Karissa doesn't need a sitter, I do.  It isn't that I'm not ambulatory or that I need someone to do things for me.  It is just that if I fall or something, I can't call for help.  Until we have some sort of even basic technology for that (and I'm a little more healed) I'll need a chaperone.

My sister is coming this weekend.  Mary is coming next weekend.  Kelly's mom is coming the week after that.  If you are interested in joining the visiting parade, Kelly is trying to put together a calendar.  It does involve doing laundry and some child care/pet care.  Likely some board game playing too, I'm just saying.

We are back to Portland on Wednesday and hopefully the trach will come out.  Let the adventure continue.

Love,
Kiara