Home Again...Home Again

John is home!!!! We are in extremely slow motion here, catching up on rest and such, but ever so glad to just be home :)

While in the hospital John got a chance to meet the new physical therapist and work with her some, he is learning to walk with crutches...



...and will get his very own pair of blue crutches when he returns for his outpatient appointment. He also got to work with the occupational therapist who we knew a couple years ago, and I had completely forgotten how much he had changed in that time until she and I got to talking about it. We look forward to working with (John calls it playing) with these nice ladies and helping John get further down the road of independence :)

Part of that is some new seating and such for his power chair, he grew out of his current seat and is in need of both a new seat and new foot plate so that he can learn to get in and out by himself, a thing that was not even a possibility when he first got the chair.

Aside from just the medical care that he needed one big important thing happened for John at the hospital, a remembering of how much he likes the nurses and doctors and how much they love him. By the time it was time to go he was calling his nurse, friend nurse, and was happy to go and visit with the doctors, one of whom gave him her watch and before we came home showed him that she had another that matched it so now they match. It's been a long time since we were in the hospital, and now with John active on the transplant list it could be a long or short time but another time is inevitable and that one will be a very extended stay. I am sad that it will not be with these nurses and doctors, but they have paved the way for John to be better able to adjust and adapt to new ones and to remember the ones in Omaha that he loves there too. There is no way to say enough good things about the staff at University Women and Children's in Columbia, everyone from our favorite cleaning lady, to the others who clean up, the people who serve food, the nurses, the doctors, the therapists, the Child life ladies and the people who work the desk and let us escape out the doors make it a patient centered, even a family centered place, where the child is seen as a whole beautiful little person and the staff become like part of the family. We're glad to be home, but we look forward to coming back to visit our friends, just to visit though :)