Hospital Day 11

 This is the smile you get when you see your best friend after almost two weeks.

Toe's very best friend, Mister J. lives about a mile from us. He has a sister a year younger and the three play together as often as we can work it into our schedules. The boys aren't in the same class this year but they do go to cub scouts together and we see their family on the way into and out of school daily. Mister J's family came to children's hospital today for a visit. It was priceless. The kids did some of Toe's "physical therapy" (playing with Nerf, super balls, and parachute men). As they were walking down the hall, Toe said, "Quick! The white tiles are LAVA!" (thanks Mr. Bill for the suggestion). We were so grateful to Mister J's parents for making the trip!

This was just a great day for visits. Besides Mister J's family, we had two other sets of visitors.  I think at one point we had eleven people in the room. We try to go for 3-4 people at a time, but we had two overlapping groups and although it was crowded, it worked out pretty well.

I'm sleeping a little later each day. I was asleep when the doctors came in for rounds this morning and had the embarrassing experience of waking up in front of our pulmonologist and two new resident physicians. I'm guessing that's not uncommon, but still....

Toe is  scheduled for blood panels on Monday and PFTs next Tuesday afternoon. Those will determine how much longer we will be here. We will do the full 14 day course of antibiotics here and then if Toe's cough is not gone, they will give him Prednisone to dry it up before we go home. My guess is that we'll be home around New Year's Day (ish?).

 After our Christmas debacle and almost two weeks here, we have determined we will need a minivan to get everything out of here. Each day when the doctors come in, they comment on how much more we have moved in. It has become a little like that nine-square game with the tiles where there is one missing and you have to shift them all around until they make a picture or the numbers are in order: during the day, stuff is on the window seat; at night, to sleep on the window seat, we move the stuff to the chair. In the morning, it all must shift again so we have chairs.

In the meantime, we continue to play on the sky bridge, hike the stairs, and try to fit in respiratory therapy, IV antibiotics, and enough meals to keep Toe's weight up. J and I don't seem to have the same issue about trying to keep our weight up. I think exercise and moderation will be prescriptions for us when we return home.