Hospital Day 5

A serenade during an artistic moment

 A fun Sunday here at Children's hospital. I really do love how quiet it is here on the weekends. We think the empty Skyway would be a perfect place for bouncing balls. Maybe next week. Toe experimented with mixing paints, had some Face Time with his cousins, had visits from friends, took a walk around the hospital, and played lots of X box.

He also has had three of his four breathing treatments (last comes in a few hours), three antibiotic treatments, and multiple visits from doctors today.

Toe's dressing for his PICC line needed to be changed today. What a procedure! We all had to wear masks to prevent any bacteria from getting on the site. The specialist had to first remove all of the adhesive tape and stabilizing stickers (they used some kind of de-gumming solution, but it was still like pulling off a giant band-aid), sterilize the area (like putting alcohol on that raw skin), and then re-dress the line. I think it was a rough experience for all of us. The good news is that Toe wears it all on his sleeve when he experiences medical stuff: he cries and yells if it hurts (not beyond reason - I think his response is pretty reasonable actually), and then when the procedure is done, he recovers almost instantly.

We are here for the next week, likely for the duration of the antibiotics (10-14 days). We think this is the best choice for Toe's health and safety and are happy to do it. Grateful that we CAN do it. Please don't feel bad about this. We are together as a family (and love spending time together). We have fantastic friends and family. We are in a place that is making our child more healthy. We have a Christmas tree and decorations. We actually can extend the holiday season by also celebrating when we get home. This is maybe not ideal, but it's pretty darn good!

Here are some photos from our day:

Making his own colors

Hand-print painting

 We also decided to dress Toby up as one of his favorite cartoon characters, Avatar Aang (from The Last Airbender tv show). I think the similarity is striking. Next time we'll get the arrow further down the forehead. It's amazing what you can do with watercolor paints.

Avatar Toe

Avatar Aang