Home Again

Thank you all for your comments and prayers during Nathan's hospital stay. We are HOME! And he is doing very well. We are still adjusting into a new routine of weighing him daily, checking his blood pressure, and giving him (only one!) medication twice a day, as well as needing to go to regular pediatrician and monthly kidney specialist visits. His wonderful pediatric kidney specialist has repeatedly assured us that he is extremely happy with Nathan's progress, that he thinks that he will have no lasting damage, and that he is recovering quickly.  We are going to have to have his peritoneal dialysis tube removal surgery in a few weeks, and then I know that I will feel like we're getting back to normal.


 Nathan is understandably a bit emotional, and swings quickly from extremely happy and giggly to tears.  This is not normal for our even keeled, cheerful boy, but obviously a small child who has been very sick, stuck with countless needles, catheterized (with two failed attempts by the PICU nurses before they called the stat nurse), gone through minor surgery, and gone through temporary cold turkey weaning is going to be scared and confused and feel less secure for a while.


But he is still generally a happy little guy, and is getting his energy and strength back very quickly.  He is blossoming verbally in the last few weeks, labeling everything by color (usually correctly!), spontaneously reciting animal noises-

"Cow say MOOOO. Pig say *snort snort*.  Chicken say BUK BUK BUK."

- and greeting us all by name in the middle of dinner ("Hi, Miriam.  Hi, Mama.  Hi, Daddy.").  He is also enjoying some new books he was given, including a new favorite, Fifteen Animals!, and an old favorite that I remembered reading to my brothers but that we didn't have, Guess How Much I Love You.



Also home is Monkey, who was given to Nathan by some kind friends who visited us in the hospital.  Monkey was 'listened to' by countless nurses, bravely took tylenol first to show Nathan it tasted good, donned a face mask along with Nathan whenever the dialysis nurses needed to change his dressing or hook or unhook his tube from the machine, and even wore a blue cap and accompanied him into surgery.  Monkey's given name on his tag was Bongo, but Nathan told every nurse who asked that his name was Monkey, so we're going with that.  ;)

We are all soaking in the summer with renewed enthusiasm... eating popsicles with all four of us piled in the hammock we bought on our honeymoon (and hung this week... why did we wait so long?!), wearing our "flips flops", as Nathan says, drinking pink lemon aid, and generally reveling in being home and being together.  God is good and has been gracious, and we are full of joy.