Happy to be home

Emma came home from the hospital yesterday - yay!  It was quite a production.  We had the most precious nurses, some of whom we had when Emma was there 18 months ago.  Jaime is one of our favorites.  When Emma left, Jaime was there, but we actually had another nurse named Laurie.  Between the two of them, Emma left that place on a throne.  Literally, a pillow throne.  Laurie wheeled her out of the PICU so that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) could wave goodbye.  Emma ate it up.  Here are some shots of her grand exit. 

Miss Jaime showing Emma pictures on her phone

Bye, Miss Jaime!

Part of Emma's parade route

Emma is feeling better a little bit at a time.  It will take a long time before she's totally over this bump in the road.  She's still choking a lot on the gross stuff in her nose and in her throat, but she'll get there.  She'll actually be contagious for another 10 days or so.

While Emma was waiting to be discharged from the hospital, she entertained herself by catching up on her emails.

We are so grateful for all our friends who visited Emma while she was in the hospital.  The sweet 10th and 11th grade girls at our church prayed together and made this sign for Emma.

We were once again reminded of how blessed we are.  Although no one wants to go to the Intensive Care Unit with their child, we hardly had time to moan, groan, grieve, or whine about it because of the constant inflow of friends, family, nurses, therapists, doctors, and even housekeeping employees who marveled over how beautiful, sweet, happy, and funny our baby girl was.  We were visited by doctors, nurses, and therapists who weren't even "assigned" to Emma.  There were several people I wish we could have seen again during our brief stay, but two in particular are (1) Dr. Gwyn, the doctor who came to the hospital in the middle of the night 18 months ago to have a conversation with us that he said should never happen over the phone and (2) the resident on call that night.  Dr. Gwyn told us we had a decision to make regarding Emma's life.  He's the one who told us to either put in a tracheostomy (breathing tube on the outside of her throat) and a feeding tube in....or not.  We decided then to truly make Emma God's child.  He loves her even more than we do, and she is His, not ours.  I will never forget watching the resident wipe tears from her face as we made this difficult decision.  If only they could see her now.

When Emma had to go back in the hospital at 8 weeks of age, I credit one of the pediatricians in the practice with saving Emma's life.  Truly, she did.  Not necessarily by what she did, but by what she didn't do.  Dr. Butcher (unfortunate name for a doctor, I know) DIDN'T make us do any paperwork or stop by the front desk on our way out of the office before we went to the hospital.  If we had gotten to the hospital 5 minutes later, it might have been too late.  Emma stopped breathing within minutes of getting in her room at the hospital.  I will never, ever forget that doctor's perspective - children are more important than the job, the rules, the money.  And that doctor came to visit Emma yesterday.  Here come the tears.  Dr. Butcher saved my baby girl's life, and when I thanked her for it once again, she immediately said, "I didn't!  God did!"  I praise our Heavenly Father for blessing us with numerous doctors and nurses who are on His team, working to be His servants and not just working to get the job done.

Enough with the sappiness and tears.  It's hard enough for me to breathe because now I have a cold.  It could possibly be RSV as well, but whatever it is...yuck.  My wonderful mother came over at the crack of dawn this morning (well, it was 8:00, but to my mom, that's the crack of dawn.  The woman sleeps late like a teenager.) to help with Emma while my throat felt as if it was swollen shut and then took Emma back to her house.  Now, let's see if I can drag myself off the couch to shower...and then drag myself back to the couch again.  At least it's a BEAUTIFUL day, and I can open the windows to listen to the birds chirping and my Cafe at Williams Hardware (small plug, hehe) wind chime...interrupted by the occasional frantic barking from Lola when she sees a chipmunk intruding upon her backyard.