Almost home

Hi everyone! Here's Tommy waving to you from his new bed in South Bend.


Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to edit photos on this computer, so the shot is a little dark. Don't be fooled: his room is actually very bright with a huge east-facing window.

Tommy is starting his third morning here at South Bend Memorial Hospital. He is settling in pretty well. It is so nice to be back "home" and surrounded by familiar faces. Tom has been visited by no fewer than a half dozen people from the NICU already. His primary nurse Jugenia even offered to babysit for a while last night so Tim and I could go out for a bite to eat together. What a nice treat. Tommy really seemed to enjoy the time with his friend Jugenia and Tim and I loved the opportunity to catch up and just be with each other for a couple hours. Thank you Jugenia!!

We had some issues initially with Tom's ventillator when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon: they didn't have the LTV (home vent) here for him and they put him on the vent he was on before the LTV at Riley. Though this would probably not affect his overall time in the hospital, I couldn't help but see this as a step backward. He had to be stable on the LTV for a week before we could transfer him here. So what good could come of putting him back on the other vent? (especially since they were constantly tweaking his vent settings) Anyway, its all a moot point now. Later that night, we were able to get the LTV set up and running. He's back on the same settings as when he arrived, but doesn't quite seem to have found his groove yet. They say that each machine has it's own slight variations on how it manages the air flow - and these variations may feel different to Tom. His respiration rate has been unusually high - especially when he's at rest - but all of his numbers are sitting right where they were before we left Riley. So there's no real reason for concern. We'll wait it out for a bit and see how he does.

We met Mary on Wednesday night. She's our trainer from the home medical company. She already did a home assessment on Thursday and has scheduled the first vent training session for Tuesday at our house. My mom and our neighbor Julie will start the training with me. Tim will be out of town next week, but will jump into the training sessions when he gets back. It'll take a couple weeks to complete all of the sessions, so we know Tom will be at Memorial for at least that long.

Our insurance company has approved Tom for nursing assistance at home when he's discharged. Once we get Tom home and settled in, we'll have nursing support for his care 12 hours a day. We'll start working with the prospective nurses at the hospital so they can get to know Tom and his gear and so we can get to know them.

At home, Henry, Joe and Sam are all doing very well - and are as cute as ever. They've started taking turns sleeping alone in a crib, as space was getting a little too tight any more to keep all 3 in the same crib together. Hopefully this will make the transition to their own cribs a little smoother when the time comes.

We also received some bittersweet news this week: our nurse/babysitter extraordinaire Becca has been offered a job at Riley's PICU. She has, of course, accepted the position and will start work there on Sept 28. We'll certainly miss her and her consistent, dependable help. Over the last few months she has become a part of our family and it will be difficult to see her go. We knew at the beginning that we couldn't keep her here forever (if we could only provide benefits...), but it's still sad to see her go. We'd like to invite all of you that have met and "worked" with Becca to send a note of thanks. Please snail mail a card to our home or email something to my email address and I'll collect them to present to her before she leaves. Thank you!

We met twice more with the photographer from the South Bend Tribune this week. He captured a few more photos at home and some sound bites to include on their website with our story. He also came to the hospital on Friday to get some shots of us with Tommy. I spoke with the journalist to confirm a few facts in the story and she promised that it will run on Sunday. If you live in the South Bend area and get the paper, please save your copy for us. And regardless of where you live, be sure to check out the newspaper's website for the photos and audio clips. As soon as I get the link from their website Sunday morning, I'll post it here on the blog.

Well, I think that covers it from our little corner of the world. Thanks again to all of the helpers at the house and to everyone for your continued love and support.

GO BLUE!
Kristin, Tim and the boys