My baby shower last week was fabulous, and I feel very blessed to have gotten all the wonderful things I (we) did. Almost everyone came, and it did feel wonderful to talk to old friends and see new babies I hadn't had the chance to meet yet.
That evening, I drove back up to Bethesda and after unloading a car full of baby shower gifts, I finally made it over to the hospital around 10pm. Oh, how I hate those hospital rooms. It felt weirdly nostalgic, going back up to the fourth floor, this time a different room, but still. And it's only been about 6 weeks since we were there. The room was much less cluttered, for sure. And Jason, much more mobile. He still had all his fingers at that point, and had that stupid 2x4 for a hand again.
I stayed until about 1am I think, too late as usual. I got up at 4:30 to be sure I was back in time for the doctor to come by. During his entire first inpatient stay, I never saw this illusive hand doctor because he always came so early. I would not miss this encounter. He didn't come until 9. Jason obviously wasn't first case for the OR. He explained that he looked at the MRI, and he offered 3 options. First, try to save the finger. Second, take it from the fracture site. Third, ray resection, or take the whole finger and the ligaments down in to the hand, moving the fingers closer together. He felt the best option would be number two, and since we spent the weekend under the impression he wouldn't even have that option, we were happy. Well, I was. I can't speak for Jason. I know he was/is disappointed in having to give up another body part and learn to adapt in a new way for different things again.
Poor thing had been NPO since midnight, and finally went down to surgery around 1:30 if I remember correctly. I was too afraid to leave and get all the way back to the room and then have them call me and say they were done. I really wanted to talk to the doctor afterwards to see what had happened.
My wonderful friends who took half my baby shower stuff back up north for me, met me and waited in the waiting room with me until he was done. The doctor finally came out and had pictures of his finger. They took it from the fracture site, which was about half way between the middle and distal knuckle and folded the remaining skin up over top. It looks a little funny, I'm not going to lie, but at least he still has some function in it. Since I knew he'd be back up from surgery in a little while, the girls and I went back to our room and they helped me unload all the rest of the baby shower stuff. They were wonderful enough to help me organize it all, also! I finally showered, and ventured back up to the room to see Jason. We ordered pizza, and called it a night.
We found out the next day he would likely go back to the OR on Wednesday for a wash out. This confused me because the doctor said his remaining bone looked very healthy, so he went ahead and closed it. It just didn't (and still doesn't) make sense to me that they would close a wound and then go back in and open it up again. I was slightly upset about this because we were really hoping to get out of the hospital by the weekend. If he had to go back to the OR, I could't see them letting him go by then. Of course, as is normal while inpatient, we got the runaround.
Wednesday comes around, and he's down in PreOp before 6am when I show up. They gave him the option of going back to the OR for another washout and then doing oral antibiotics for about a week at home, or not going to the OR, and getting a PICC Line and having IV antibiotics for about 6 weeks at home. He chose the first.
That evening, we hoped he'd be switched to oral antibiotics for possible discharge the next day. I guess I was rushing the process. Instead of that, they put him on the bacteria specific antibiotic and wrote the order for 3 days. WTF. I was mad. Earlier, the Ortho docs and the Infectious Disease docs told us 'yes he can be switched to oral meds, and yes possible discharge tomorrow.' You better believe I was mad. But it was late when she hung the first bag, and of course all the people you want to talk to go home by 4pm. The next morning, Thursday, Infectious Disease came in before I had a chance to get there, and told him they wanted him to stay on the IV antibiotics while he was inpatient. So we assumed that meant we'd be here through the weekend. I was hot. They happened to come in again later in the day. I tried to be polite, but I still said "So do you guys ever communicate with the other doctors on his case? Or do they just have to read your notes? Because it seems like we're getting a lot of back and forth here. It'd be nice if we could get a straight answer."
They didn't say much.
I think we ended Thursday still not knowing if we'd be home by the weekend. We were both in a really crappy mood. The weather was yucky that day too. It's amazing how fast things change. It was like going back to jail after having a small taste of freedom. We were confined to the hospitals protocols and all that bahooie. We were grumpy. This time Jason could walk, and do most everything by himself. The grass is always greener, I guess. I decided I'd go to Target and finally do some baby shopping after returning a few duplicates from the baby shower. I have been itching to buy stuff for this baby, but I didn't want to until after the shower.
Friday morning he said they came in and said they were going to try to discharge him first thing. Thank goodness. It still took until about 1130 to get out of there, but we did it. And we came back to building 62, packed our bags, and went upstairs to eat lunch. Then we got on a bus to Ocean City. Talk about wasting no time!
We signed up to go on a marriage retreat with the Army a few weeks ago. It's pretty religious based, but it's also a free trip. We had a good time, learned a few techniques for communicating and such, and relaxed a little. But we're still pretty tired from it all.
We got back this evening, and I didn't bother to fully unpack our bags. It's Thanksgiving this week. We're making the trek down to Nags Head to be with my family. We're going to stop in Va Beach on the way to visit his brother and family to break up the trip. Hopefully the traffic isn't a nightmare. I have a bad feeling about that, though.
Now we have lots of appointments to catch up on. A scan for his hip to be cleared for running, an x-ray of his nub to confirm HO, follow up with ortho and infectious disease, cancel appointments for the fluoroscopy he was supposed to have of that finger, wheelchair clinic, and my baby appointment. phew.
We did put the stroller/car seat and pack n' play together, though. That was exciting, and a little nerve wracking at the same time. Like, "Oh shit this is our junk now. We're having a baby soon. Real soon. A little human. Oh crap." Jason helped me cut all the tags off all the baby clothes. I was going to wash them all. That was a little over zealous of me. I just did one load for tonight, of blankets, towels, washcloths, and sheets. It was a full load. I'm trying this new thing, where even though I have this huge list of things I want to get accomplished, I have to be realistic of the timeline. If I had done the rest of the clothes, I'd still be awake right now doing laundry. And in reality, what's the rush right now? So, I forced myself to leave the rest of the stuff in piles on the bed. I'll try to tackle it tomorrow.
This baby still has no name. Suggestions?
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