a Thanksgiving evening at home, sweet home
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Today you get to the discharge part of our Thanksgiving Day hospital adventure. This is the fourth post, with the story beginning in the post the worst 12 minutes and continuing with the longest seven hours of waiting and the best morning...
The walk was sweetness to me too. Claudia was just helping to transport us, so when she asked about our night, she was asking as a friend not as a medical professional needing to gather clinical information. Other than a earlier phone conversation with Blake, our children's pastor, I hadn't gotten to just talk about the incident and aftermath without editing out details that were unnecessary to Robbie's care. It was nice to talk it out while we walked.
We settled in. I decided it was fine to document my rockin' cool pajama pants with a picture on Facebook. It had seemed really important to me during Robbie's seizure to have jeans to change into. Angie didn't question that, just got my jeans for me and added them to our hospital bag. (In case you're wondering, yes, I had changed into pajama pants while Angie was still hanging out at the house that evening. We're good friends like that.) After we got to the hospital and were heading to get the CT scan, I said something to Lee about needing to change into my jeans because we were out in public. A nurse heard me and said, "Honey, nobody cares what you're wearing here."
She was right. I stayed in the cartoony fleece.
We figured out the new room's TV and the DVD rental system and the menu (WakeMed, I must say that you have a looooooong way to go before you're at the Rex food level) and waited for the neurologist. I called to check in with Lee, who was with sweet friends of ours who opened their home to him and the girls so they could still have a typical Thanksgiving Day.
(Other friends also sweetly offered to host them too. We are very, very blessed!)
(Other friends also sweetly offered to host them too. We are very, very blessed!)
As Karen posted pictures of them on Facebook, I knew they were being cared for well. I can't explain it, but knowing that the rest of my family was being fed and loved helped me focus on my boy and ministered to my heart in a precious way. Such grace.
The neurologist came, talked through plans and future considerations (which I'll post more about tomorrow), turned down Robbie's offer to wear the heart sensors so Robbie didn't have to, and chuckled when Robbie decided we were boring and shut his eyes for another nap.
With no EEG techs at the hospital because of the holiday, we opted to just wait until the next week to do that at the neurologist's office. Which meant...
DISCHARGE!
As we waited to find out when we would leave, Robbie woke up and said, "Mommy, I think maybe some other boy got sick, and we should get to leave." In other words, he didn't remember the seizure - which is typical - so I must have made a big mistake by bringing us to the hospital.
Oh, sweet boy. If only.
When the time came to leave, Jocelyn stayed with our friends, and Lee and Zoe came to get us, since my car was at home given that I rode in the ambulance on Wednesday. Thankfully, the Dormans sent Lee with leftovers, so I ate a plate as soon as we got to the car. (Seriously, Wake Med food = not exciting!) We pulled out around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, stopping by the nearest open pharmacy to pick up the prescription we needed in case Robbie had a repeat performance.
I also got some special medicine for Mama.
That evening, I needed a drive to clear my head, so I went to pick up Jocelyn even though our friends offered to bring her to our house. I stayed at their house and chatted for a while, and for the first time that day, felt like it was a normal Thanksgiving.
Jocelyn, who can get anxious about emergencies, enjoyed herself too much that day to be worried for her brother, and she skipped all the way to the car. More sweet grace. Begging for more sweet tea, we swung through the McDonald's drive through for her (and a Diet Coke for me!).
We arrived home shortly after a friend had come by to see our boy and bring him presents, and she had delicious Thanksgiving leftovers with her too. (Leftovers are my favorite part of Thanksgiving!) As we put Robbie to bed with Zoe's monitor re-located to his room, I was too tired to stay up to watch him like I intended to.
In the morning, though, he was himself, climbing into our bed at 5am and snuggling and smiling and asking for juice.
Oh, so thankful!
My final post in this story will be tomorrow... what do we do now? (In case you don't read that full post before our EEG, that's at 12:30 tomorrow. Please pray!)