Elliot "T-monster" Payne finally made it home from the hospital today. It felt kinda strange loading him up in the car and driving away. I thought they were gonna hawk me down and check us back in, but we made a clean getaway.
It’s gonna take a while for Sunette and I to get settled into a routine around here. I mean, up to now he’s been in a hospital with 24 hour care. I’m not sure what tonight’s gonna hold, but I’m sure we’ll make it through. He’s a gorgeous kid and he’s doing exceptionally well. No oxygen right now, although we do have it at the house just in case. Now we’ll just watch him close until his next surgery in January. Here’s a pic of today right before discharge and my buddy Eric and his wife holding him this evening.
Sunette and Elliot made it back to Columbus on Monday afternoon without any problems. Well, they were on a medical transport so I think they could’ve handled any problems had there been any. They’ve kept him at the Columbus Medical Center since then to make sure all was well. He’s off oxygen right now and there’s talk of discharging him tomorrow. That would be the first time we’ve had him home since he was born, over two months ago. We can’t wait! Tell me he’s not a cutie!
Yesterday it didn’t look like Sunette and Elliot would be home for another week. It’s been two weeks since I left them at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia thinking they would be on a flight the day after I left.
This morning at 10 I spoke to Sunette and she had just spoken to the cardiologist and would have to call me back. Before she could, I got a call from the medical transport company. The conversation went something like this:
Medflight: we’re all set to transport Elliot and your wife back to Columbus
Me: Whaaaaaattt??? Have you spoken with the hospital?
Medflight: yes, we’ve been in contact with your caseworker, the doctors and insurance. did you not know?
Me: No one’s told me anything. I’m not even sure my wife knows.
Medflight: Yeah, the plane’s scheduled to be on the ground in Philly at 11:45am and be back in Columbus around 4:30pm
Me: TODAY???!!!!
Medflight: Yep, we’re all set.
etc.
So I call Sunette and she was trying to keep it a surprise until she was absolutely sure they were leaving. We’ve been down that road before so we didn’t want to get our hopes up too much.
Well here I sit at 3:30 and I can hardly wait for them to get here. In fact, follow along with me now. They’ll be here before we know it!
I apologize for the delinquency in posts as of late, but I’ve been a little busy and have focused more on Elliot’s carepage. Again, you can find it by going to www.carepages.com and searching for BabyPayne.
Long story short… since we missed our original medical transport last Monday due to a newly formed blister on Elliot’s foot, we were rescheduled for last Wednesday. After some communications with the medical transport team, Sunette and I felt that it would be best if I rented a car and drove home with our luggage and what not. As I was getting ready to leave on Tuesday we were still a go for Wednesday morning at 10am. My plans were to drive all day Tuesday and then meet them at Egleston in Atlanta on Wednesday once they got there.
Well, during the drive Sunette called and let me know that there were now no beds available at Egleston so they wouldn’t be leaving on Wednesday morning, but they were supposed to get some openings so hopefully it would be Thursday. That was a big let down. After 12 hours of straight driving I pulled into Atlanta, dropped off the car and hitched a ride with my buddy Eric down to Columbus.
We found out on Thursday that Egleston wouldn’t have a bed available until sometime this week, so the CHOP started looking at other options. They settled on sending Elliot to the PICU at the Medical Center here in Columbus and the medical transport was set up for this past Saturday. All seemed to be a go, transport was ready and a bed was available.
Well, early Saturday morning Elliot spiked a fever and started coughing quite a bit. They worried that he’d caught some sort of infection so the trip home was canceled. After some respiratory tests they discovered, just today, that it was the human metapneumo virus…or the common cold. Unfortunately, the common cold to an HLHS baby is grounds for hospitalization. So, after all that, they’ve put Elliot back on a 1/2 liter of oxygen and will keep him until he’s stable and no longer needs the oxygen. That may be a little while. Hopefully it won’t be long, but plans for discharge have been put on hold.
So I’m in Columbus, trying to get the new house in order and Sunette’s in Philly with Elliot. It certainly doesn’t feel like home without the family here. We’re staying in pretty tight contact so if I need to head back to Philly I can do so at a moment’s notice. That’s where we are right now. I’ll try to keep everyone posted a little better. Thx.
Look, I’m sorry if I’m being too critical…but come on people. The other day I was in a computer store that was an Apple certified reseller. They had Macbook Pros and 30" inch displays right next to some clunky Dell 600 series laptops. It was kinda ugly. Not to mention that the Dell’s were more expensive than the regular Macbooks that were out. No kidding. Anyway, this store is right next to the University of Pennsylvania, a school full of bright and intelligent students. While I was in there eyeing a Macbook Pro, which will hopefully be a soon purchase, I heard many a student come in and mispronounce Microsoft’s new OS.
First off, I wanted to snatch half of them up and point their head at the Macbook and go "do you see that? it can run OSX and Windows, side by side, and it comes with a whole lot more than that Dell 630, for cheaper", but I didn’t do that. Secondly, these are intelligent people, Vista has been out for quite some time now, but I had to leave on about the 4th person that came in and called it Veeesta. People…that’s an "I". How do you pronounce "him" or "stick"? When you say Veesta you sound like an eeejit.
And second on the "will you please take a second look at the word and use basic pronunciation skills" list; again, another seemingly educated person in the hospital lounge, just blabbing loudly about nothing at all. I mean, that in itself was kinda aggravating as I’m trying to enjoy 10 minutes of college football between bedside visits. What is she blabbing about… Sah-DUE-koh. Yeah I’d never heard of it either. Oh you mean Su-DOH-kue. Sheesh. Look at the spelling… Sudoku. So what’s gotten on your nerves this week?
Well after 8 weeks and some odd days in Philadelphia for Elliot’s birth and stage 1 of his HLHS surgery, we are making plans to head home. It looks like it will be Monday or Tuesday, but everything is in the works. They will medical transport us to Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, where they will probably keep him for a few hours to overnight to make sure he’s stable. Right now the hold up is that Egleston doesn’t have any available beds in their CICU. Doh. Everything else is set up and we are ready to go. So after a long stay in Philly and an up and down hospital stay for Elliot, we’re homeward bound. <cue simon & garfunkel outro>
No that’s not pig-latin or baby speak. It’s Afrikaans for Happy Birthday, since Saturday was Sunette’s B-day. Unfortunately Saturday didn’t feel like much of a birthday for her since we spent the day in the hospital with Elliot. He’s doing pretty well, we’re just trying to get the feeding thing worked out. He’s going in for his G-tube on Tuesday and a Nissin procedure which should help with his reflux. Hopefully those procedures will clear up the nagging little issues that have been hanging around. I’m hoping we can be home in about a week after his G-tube procedure. We’re in our 8th week up here in Philly so it can’t come soon enough.
Anyway, Saturday wasn’t much of a birthday but I made reservations at a phenomenal restaurant for Sunday night. It’s a Tapas restaurant in downtown Philly called Amada. I had to call 5 days in advance to get reservations at a decent time, it’s that rockin. We got there last night at 9pm and had one of our top dining experiences ever, seriously.
The selection was amazing, the presentation was impeccable and the flavors were out of this world. If you’re not familiar with tapas, they are kind of "mini-meals" that are traditional spanish fare. Typically you combine several and share them to create a full meal, but made up of lots of smaller dishes. Here’s what I love about tapas; the chef’s full attention goes into that one dish, then the next, then the next. It’s not this big heaping thing of pasta that you fill up on or get tired of halfway through. Every bite you take has been meticulously crafted to be the best bite it can be.
We had about 6 dishes in all and a dessert. I wish that I could describe them for you, but this post would get gargantuan, as you prolly know how much I love food, I could wax poetic. Needless to say, we both agreed that it was close to, if not, our top dining experience ever. I also surprised her with a special "dish" I ordered just for her. I conspired with the waitress to bring out a couple pieces of jewelry that I was giving Sunette on a plate as if it were another dish. Oh I know, stop it…. stop it. She was surprised to say the least, since we’ve been spending all waking hours at the hospital. I stole away for a couple hours and hunted down a couple special gifts for my special woman. Love you hon!! Happy Birthday!!
