Weekend - That's A Wrap!

?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?“If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans” - this is one of my favorite quotes, it always helps me to feel a little better when you feel like your losing it….God is just calling you to Him. I think God has been SCREAMING at me to follow him, because my plans….OUT-THE-WINDOW!

Let’s start at the beginning….as I talked about last week Danny’s need for a tune-up was here and for a change we planned go to Johns Hopkins and work directly with a CF Center. On Tuesday we headed up to Baltimore, but unsure what to expect, so I planned to stay the night or two.

The first day was good and although it was all new and a little unnerving - we did not even know how to get to his floor - we adjusted. And actually a movie night and just hanging out together was nice (says the one not being poked and prodded). On Wednesday the hospital quickly launched into looking at Danny’s veins and what they could withstand. With just a regular IV running blood clot issues were already forming so it was decision time.

Taking 24 hours, several different meetings, and going with his gut - Danny opted to go for an IV line that is basically “sewn in” via his chest, to a primary vein. This was to lessen the chance for blood clots and shorten the distance meds had to travel to the lungs. New, scary, and required an actual procedure - but by Friday it was in and looking good! Friday morning they said if all looked good we could take Dan home that night! Danny has been down that road before and knew not to get too excited until the discharge papers were printed. I had taken a 24 hour break and just getting back became hooked on the idea of just turning around and going back home, I got excited! But….we ended up staying over until Saturday, which ended up staying until about 4PM that afternoon. Hopstial time is sorta like island time - except no fun drinks, sunshine, or sand in your toes.

All in all though it made coming home on Saturday afternoon sublime! Just feeling the sun and fresh air has to be worth a million bucks for my husband….and I LOVE walking out of the hospital with Dan. Knowing he must instantly feel better. Getting home ignited so much excitement in me, I even made dinner - a rarity!! It was a good night and we slept like LOGS finally back with the family of three all in one bed! Did my heart good every time I woke up and saw some part of Quinlan (a foot, his whole back nudged up) touching Danny. His Dad was home and not going anywhere!

This blog is still new, but it would not take anyone very long to know how much I love to plan, and the feeling of a fresh start. Coming home from the hospital is ALWAYS a great time to start anew or make some goals. We talked about our new meal plannng efforts, better workout schedules and trying to get back to some date time….we got the IVs that had been hanging over Dan’s head started and finally we could stop wondering when a tune-up would come calling. That night we had dinner and said Monday will be a great day! I even opted for one more day staying home to “realign” our little family before heading back to the real world….I guess my gut was right about not working…..but my guess was a little off on how we would spend today.

At 1AM Danny’s IV started to give him trouble. He knew (and he is ALWAYS right about it) he needed to get the ER and have this looked at. Since he thought he could wait a little bit, he opted to let me sleep, but we would get up EARLY and try and get in when it was not busy. Heading in at 5AM (even allowing me to stop for Starbucks- true love), we got there without one other person insight. This is ER magic - and we thought for sure things would progress. Ok - truth: I thought they wold progress, Danny reminded me to be patient. After several trails and errors, tests, and many hours - a blood clot was found, removed and we headed home, with the message of “hopefully it won’t return…but if it does just come back.”

We walked out of the ER and as we waited for our car from valet we both looked like we had been camping for days in the woods. No showers, baggy sweats, my mom bags overloaded with papers, clothes, electronics…..and we both just stared ahead wondering what had happened to our glorious, well planned Monday. GONE! (Dear God, please be laughing…..someone should…..and please tell us what the heck we are supposed to do…). I think Danny said it best, “we will just fix our lives tomorrow.”

What a week. In some ways so much of this is routine, especially for Danny. However this tune-up and follow up also brought a lot of new changes and fears. The truth is once you get past the scary, once you learn to let yourself off the hook of your calendar and to do list, once you just breath (and shower off all those days/smells/germs), you can see the lessons. You can see the growth and I know this unique trip also signified a new experience for Danny and I. Later this week I plan to share more about the in hospital stay - what we learned, what was successful, and what will be nice to know for the future. For now though, we are home, the IV is working, we have been BLESSED with A-M-A-Z-I-N-G support and tomorrow is a new day.