It's All Happening!

The sun was shining, the air was warm, Nolan slept through the ENTIRE night...and I got the news that tomorrow we will be discharged to the Ronald McDonald  House! I thought it was going to be Thursday, but he receives his last dose of antibiotics at 4 pm tomorrow, so after that we are ready to go! Two weeks ago when we thought we were being discharged, I honestly was not ready. But now, I have a gut feeling we are good and I feel prepared to move forward.

So, trying to follow some sort of "routine," I got here around 8 am and gave Nolan a bath. I was told by our nurse that he slept through the entire night (so excited!) Around 10 am he had a little cat nap and after I got him down on his play mat to get him out of bed. Physical therapy came in and had a great session. They are working on his reaching because they feel he is lagging a little bit in that respect, however, today he did great! He was so active and really seemed to be working hard! We have some great PTs here that have been working with Nolan for a long time! I know it's exciting for them to see him excel.

Nolan and I had a great visit from our friend, Lori. I met Lori through various heart-related groups on Facebook, and she is the Children's Heart Foundation's Pennsylvania Chapter President. Her daughter, whose name is ironically Riley, was born with a congenital heart defect and now has a pacemaker. It was so nice to finally meet her and chat about our kids, experiences and have her meet Nolan. Thank you for coming by, Lori!

After Lori left, Nolan got to hang out with his amazing music therapist. They jammed out for awhile while I did some work. I thought Nolan would go down for a nap after, but the boy was ready to party. So, lucky enough we went to one on the 6th floor! March is Child Life month, so all the Child Life Specialist had a party with a bunch of fun stuff for the kids to do. Nolan and I strolled around a bit, but actually spent most of the time outside on the terrace. What a gorgeous day! I am thankful we got a little taste of it!

I knew that Nolan needed to nap, so, with the suggestion of our nurse...who knows Nolan well...we put on his favorite movie - The Little Mermaid. He watched it for a little then dozed off while I rocked him to sleep. The rest of the day was spent a lot with our nurse since we knew it was going to be our last day together. As I was rocking Nolan to sleep tonight, I was slowly trying to place Nolan into bed, and his feeding tube was stuck to my shirt and it came out! I knew this was a sign that I had to learn how to do this. So, thanks to the great teaching of our night nurse, she guided me through the entire process...and I successfully placed it on the second try. It's definitely a two person job, but, I guided that sucker in. Felt horrible, but, we got it done!

And that was our day. Last night at CHP...hopefully...for a long time. BUT, in this world, we take everything day by day. :)

#nhos