Scoliosis traditional rod placement Post OP Day 5 – GOING HOME

Today is the day! We have the brace, we have the medication, we have clearance from orthopedic and pulmonary and now we just need discharge papers. This always takes hours, but today we made sure we informed anyone who was willing to listen that we had a 5 1/2 drive and needed to leave ASAP. The pulmonary doctor told us he’d get us out by 11am and guess what? It totally happened!

We were so worried about making sure we had all of our supplies and medical stuff we came with. Yesterday we had a pretty scary moment. We were missing our suction machine, that happened to have Cole’s $12K Rondo (hearing device) in it. We thought maybe we left it in the other room before we got transferred to the TCC unit.

We, frantically, escalated this issue to the charge nurse and as we were doing it I remembered. I knew for sure I had his suction machine on his bed when we got transferred. This means, the transport team had to have taken it back with them. Well… That’s exactly what happened and within 20min we had our suction machine and his rondo.

Anyway, we made sure there was nothing left behind. When you stay at a hospital any supplies in your room will be tossed out and is already being paid for by your insurance, so take whatever you want. We always stock up on stuff. We even took the disinfectant wipes. The nurse said just make sure you put it in the bag because I think we’re low on stock.

We wheel Cole out of there and he’s as excited as us to be out. We get in the car where Mark had made a makeshift bed using the whole backseat, but no matter what, with the brace and surgery Cole couldn’t really get comfortable. Mark ended up bagging Cole with an ambu bag (of course a new one from the hospital) for the entire 5 1/2 hours. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s huge. The best analogy is squeezing a stress ball every 3 seconds. Now just imagine the ball breathes and you have to time your every 3 seconds to the inhale and exhale.

We get home and boy did it feel amazing to be home! Now we just waited every second for Lexi to get home. Her incredible Aunt who distracted her with an awesome week at the cottage, also timed getting home perfect with us. We got to hang out with them for a little while and Cole, literally had a huge smile the entire time.

We have some amazing people in our lives and Cole was presented with so many gifts, warm wishes, prayers, and thoughts prior to going to the hospital and great welcome home surprises, balloons, and gifts as well.

Mark and I received the greatest gifts also. A successful surgery for our son, back home with our daughter, and a night nurse so we can sleep the first time in 4 nights.