Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Home....or a lack there of...


When I woke up, all I knew is that I was in pain. Oddly enough, I didn’t have any pain in my head. The pain I was having in my stomach and in my collarbone were excruciating.  My stomach hurt so bad I remember wondering if they made a mistake and did the wrong surgery. I expected to have a headache, not this.  They must have given me some really good pain meds because the next thing I knew I was being wheeled into my room. My husband and my mom were there waiting for me. I finally felt like I could start to relax. My surgery had gone so well, that instead of going back to the ICU, I was taken to a regular room. Not too much excitement from there. At one point my ENT came to check on us and wish us well.  Of course my surgeon came in to check on us too. He said that I should be able to go home the next day. When I asked him about the pain in my collarbone and stomach he told us that it was from the tube that runs from the shunt. It takes the fluid from my brain into my abdomen. From what I could understand, it's not exactly a gentle approach that they use while placing the tube. Made sense to me and gave me some reassurance that they didn’t perform the wrong procedure. The highlight of my day was when my husband’s parents brought the boys for a little visit. Hugs and kisses from them were just what I needed.

That evening, my husband and I started to discuss what we were going to do next. We knew we were going to need help with what was to come. Lots of help. Especially with the boys. Our parents both lived about 600 miles away. We knew we needed to be close to them. So here it was, December 19th, just about a week before Christmas and we decided to make the move. We were going home.

My husband began making calls to try and arrange things. His company was so amazing. They pretty much told us to do what we needed to do and they assured him that a position was waiting for him where we were moving. Yet again we saw God’s hand in all this craziness.  We decided we would move in with my parents since trying to find a place on such short notice would be almost impossible and again, we knew I would need help for a while. I was discharged the next afternoon and we headed home to start packing up what we would need to make a quick move. Clothes in trash bags, some of the boy’s favorite things. Our parents had already started getting things together for us and that was such a big help. I was pretty much useless. Recovering very well, but really not able to do anything to help. Our family and friends came by that night to say goodbye. It was such a blur and I was still pretty medicated so I honestly don’t remember much.  But the cars were packed and we were ready to leave in the morning.

We headed out early to try and let the boys sleep some along the way. About 4 hours into the trip, we realized that we had left all of the boys Christmas presents in the attic at the house. Not a huge deal but gave us a good chuckle. The trip went along well. Made an occasional stop for Big G as he seemed to be having a bit of carsickness, but we made good time and got there safely.  We were home.

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