Welcome Home??? or Welcome Home :)

Dear family and friends,

It's Monday morning.  Gary has been home now since Friday evening around 9PM.  I must say that a week and 1/2  ago, I would not have expected all that has happened to have happened.  It's been a crazy time but a blessed time, even with all the ups and downs and the "roller coaster" rides.  I apologize for not having written anything since Wednesday, but a lot has happened since then and definitely not at all as we'd planned. 

Wednesday afternoon, it started raining and raining and raining.  By Thursday morning, we, along with many, many other people around here, had water in our homes, some a few water spots, others many feet of water.  We ended up with about 4 to 5 inches.  A lot of the roads in the area had flooding both local and also some of the tollways and expressways, so one needed to weave their way through the streets to get anywhere.  Timothy Christian School where Andrew and Stephanie go, as well as many of the schools in the area were canceled, so Andrew, Stephanie, and I spent the day working on our basement getting rid of the water as well as starting the process of cleaning it out -- they did the lifting and we all did some of the sorting and tossing.  Peter was quite busy with work, having already started around 2 AM, dealing with flooding issues, but was able to set up a great system in helping to get the water out of our house.  I did call the Transplant ICU and spoke with his nurses in both the morning and early evening letting them know I wouldn't be in because of the flooding and they told me he was doing well.  About an hour after my second call, I received a call from some friends who had stopped by to visit (the wife works at UIC -- I knew she worked at one of the hospitals downtown but forgot which one) and they were with him when he was moved to the step-down unit.  I was glad they called and I was able to talk to Gary by telephone right after that.  I was a bit frustrated that in my telephone calls with his nurses, I had not been told this was happening, but was thankful for the telephone call from our friends.

Friday morning came and with it school again for Andrew and Stephanie.  I'll admit, I had been praying for another day off for them since we still had work to do in our clean up, as I'm sure many others had work left to do too in their clean ups, but the Lord had other plans for us too.  I was having a very rough start to my day, and one of my friends helped get me through.  That's one thing I've really found amazing especially this week, how God puts just the right people in place at the right times to help us "walk through those rough spots".  Anyhow, I received a telephone call from Gary that they were talking about releasing him that afternoon or evening.  I was beside myself because we were still cleaning up from flooding, had no hot water (which I already knew was going to be fixed that evening by another friend), we felt we still did not know enough about taking care of Gary or what needed to be done to our home to prepare for him to be there as well as many other unanswered questions.  I also was struggling with a lot of conflicting information that we had been given which also made me more frustrated.  Basically, even though he was getting great care from the nurses and doctors there, I felt we were not prepared enough to bring him home already, so, my friend drove me to the hospital to spend time finding out some answers, etc.  Yes, they were preparing to send Gary home that afternoon.  I tried to get all my questions answered -- some were answered better than others.  In the middle of this, Gary had to use the restroom in his room and I had gone to stand out in the hallway.  A man who worked at the hospital, walked into his room and past his room mate and looked at Gary's bed.  He came out and said to me so he's gone now right?  I said no, he's in the restroom and he won't be gone til this evening sometime since I still need to go home to get his clothes but the nurses told me to stay here until we've seen all the doctors we need to see and then go home to get his clothes.  Ends up, he was there to see if they could clean the room for another patient.  I had already talked with Peter and told him what we needed so he was going to stop at home after work and bring them down (for those not familiar with the area, we live in Villa Park, a western suburb of Chicago.  The hospital is towards downtown Chicago and although going to the hospital around midnight can take around 20 to 30 minutes, going in the afternoon can easily take an hour or more).  To explain a bit why he was checking to see if Gary had left, they were running out of rooms in the hospital and I know esp in the Transplant ICU, so I'm sure he was trying to clean up rooms as quickly as possible because a large part of the step down area had been made into Transplant ICU rooms.  I was so thankful that my friend came with me.  God has sure blessed us with wonderful support from family and friends.

Another reason we were surprised by the quick change of events was that although we knew Gary was doing really well overall with the transplants, he had been back on a nasal GI tube when I left on Wednesday with restrictions still of 1 cup of ice every 8 hour shift, on Thursday they had the tube out for the 2nd time and started him on a liquid diet (no real limit from what I understand -- NO more having to try to bribe the nurses and visitors for ice) and Friday morning they started him on solid foods -- basically anything although he basically picked at his food and ate some of it, but his appetite was (and still isn't) back.  It seemed like too much too fast.

It IS good to have him home and not to have to go back and forth to the hospital.  He's taken a few short (for what he's used to but I'm sure he'll work back up) walks outside with one of us.  I and the kids keep trying to get him to drink more fluids since that is important, but is somewhat of a struggle for him.  Right at the moment he spends a lot of time in the recliner.  He has a lot of restrictions for now.  Here are some of them -- lots of handwashing, no driving, no cut flowers, no gardening for him for 6 months and after that he'll have to wear gloves when he works in the dirt, he cannot carry more then 10 lbs (they used a gallon of milk for an example), stay away from crowds, no movie theaters was a specific item mentioned many times, make sure you use sunscreen, and make sure you take your medication (particulary the anti rejection medication) on time.  He's on quite a bit of medication -- I thought he was on a lot before, he's on even more now. 

Our first clinic appointment is Wednesday morning.  I chuckle when they told us your appt is at 10AM but come 1 1/2 to 2 hours before for the bloodwork.  My figuring is then you may as well say the appointment is at 8am, but oh well.  I know we'll be spending a lot of time down there yet for followup appointments.  They also warned us not to be surprised if he has to go into the hospital again because that is not uncommon for dehydration.  They gave us a list of when to call the doctor and who to call when.

I'm sure there's more to tell, but will stop with this for now.  Thank you all for your continued thoughts, prayers, cards, notes, meals, visits, and listening ears.  It is wonderful having such a caring "support" group of family, friends, church family and school family.

A few items for prayer:

1.  Thankful to have Gary home and doing so well and that even with the little "bumps" that will probably happen, that he will continue to do so well and continue to get stronger each day.

2.  Patience with each other as we finish cleaning up from flooding besides Peter working his regular job, and Andrew and Stephanie with schoolwork and preparing for AP exams as well as other school activities and just being Seniors in High School and making final college decisions, and Bradley and Laura with their lives in Freeport when I know at times they'd like to be here with us too.

3.  Patience for me and confidence in my ability to do the best for taking care of  Gary that I can.

4.  That we will all stay healthy because one of us getting sick would not be good for Gary.

Thank you all so much for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Love,
Nelly

A good reminder for me that I saw on an old card I was throwing out yesterday:

          God cares .... right down to the last detail  James:5:11  The Message

P.S.  Some people have their last name on their comments, some do not.  There is no way for me to know who you are if it's just your first name commenting and we know more then one person by that first name, so, if you don't mind, tell me your last too, since we love hearing from all of you?  Thanks so much.