Freedom!!

We finally made it out of the hospital!!  Hip, hip, hooray for us. We went in on Friday, March 23rd for "day surgery" and then they told us she would have to spend one night in the hospital just to keep on top of her pain meds.  One night turned into twelve and we finally got discharged on Tuesday, April 2nd.

The reason we were incarcerated hospitalized for so long was because we had to wait for a PICC line.  This fun little medical procedure means that Kylie has an internal IV site.  That way the medicine can run up a tube inside her vein to her heart.  Her meds are really tough on veins and so she needs them to bypass the small veins and head right to the big one at the top of her heart that is way tougher.  At least that's what I understand.

Tuesday at noon they started to prep her for her procedure.  Once the nurses told the doc how tough Kylie was (she had still been counting IV sites, and this last PICC line site was number 25!), they decided she did not need to be sedated.  She was a little nervous about having to be fully awake for the procedure but she did great.

Here she is with a special cream on her arms (then wrapped in plastic wrap) that will numb her arms for the "poke."  Still our Smiley Kylie.

 

I got to go into the room with her until she was settled and on the table, but then they made me leave.  So here she is post-procedure.  Lookin' a little unimpressed with me.

 

We were able to go home that same afternoon and a home care nurse arrive that evening to help us get her set up at home.  Here's where the PICC bandage and line looks like:

Before the nurse arrived, we got a delivery of medical supplies to maintain her line, clean her site, clean the incision on her foot and a gazillion other things.  Here we are looking at our bag of loot and wondering how much training it will require to understand it all!

Confusion abounds!

And here she is -- sick and unwell girl.  Yes, that is her - riding her bike with her aircast and her little back pack that carries her meds, her IV line coming out, her little medical pump (which she named Squirty) and an ice pack to keep the meds nice and cool.  

She is a super trooper.

We are so very thankful to be out of the hospital and sleeping in real beds.  I stayed all twelve nights with Kylie in hospital on a little fold out chair thing and I was VERY happy when I got to crawl into a real bed on Tuesday night.  

One morning last week, I woke up and the nurse told me that though we had been in hospital for five days already, no one had placed the actual order for a PICC line for her. I became rather grumpy.  And so did Kylie.  We wondered how long we would have to stay there for! We decided to list things we were thankful for to try to counteract the grumpiness in our room when God gave us both a huge amount of perspective.  The night before, while we were sleeping, the nurses had admitted a little girl into the bed beside Kylie. We didn't find out why she was there until mid-morning in the middle of our grumpiness:   she had had her leg amputated. And that was just the kick in the pants Kylie and I needed to realize that no matter when we got outta there, we could wait because she would WALK out of the hospital with two feet.  

Thank You, Lord!

On another note, we'd like to share with you just ONE MORE MIRACLE!  Once we got home and settled, the pharmacy came to the door with all of Kylie's very very expensive medications.  Just before they came I had received a phone call that they would be arriving right to our door.  I asked the lady how I was supposed to pay for them when they showed up.  She replied that I didn't have to pay for them - THEY WERE COMPLETELY COVERED!!  Amazing, isn't it??  I don't know how long they are covered for, perhaps the entire year but either way, it is incredible.  Even the nurses were telling me how expensive vancomycin is and wondered how we would pay for it all.  God is indeed VERY good.

And a couple of final pictures.  Some people have continued to ask about our owl, Howard.  Here are few pics of him just before we returned to Canada.  He is so much cuter!

 Turns out that Howard has learned to use his wings and flew out of our carport one Sunday.  The good news is he still considers it home and comes home every day to sleep on the exposed rafters or sit on the roof.

 

Owl baby in a basket -- isn't he so adorable??

 

And finally, a little update on what the heck we're doing.  Nate and the boys are going to stay in Togo until June. Mid-May I am going to fly back to help pack and say goodbye/see ya later to our friends and teammates and then return with Nate and the boys.  And that's the plan -- for now.  We'll keep you posted on how things truly pan out.  

Thanks for praying!