One more night

It's official (almost) Elliott gets discharged tomorrow and then it is 'Adios Michigan'. All we need is a couple of dozen of people to sign-off and we are free! So, with this our last night ahead of us, it seems to me to be a good time to think about what it has meant to be in this hospital. Of course, for each of us the experience has been different. For Elliott, to know that he is now free from 'pokes' is a serious boon. For Euan and Annie, the opportunity to move beyond the confines of hotel rooms, play areas, and cold weather trips to the Ann Arbor 'Hands On Museum' (as wonderful as it is), will be welcome to say the least. The familiar toys and beds and colors of home are waiting for all three of them. For my mother-in-law, there is, at last, the opportunity to return to her husband in Los Angeles. Monica and I are so very grateful for Momute's sacrifice to come be with us these past two weeks, particularly given that her husband, our children's 'Grandaddyo', has not been too well himself, although he is clearly in better health now if the nifty ready-to-build propeller he sent Elliott today is anything to go by. Thank you too, Grandaddyo!

For Monica, the strain of having three children needing her, at times at every turn, has been draining. She deserves a good long spell of uneventful life back in San Diego. I think we all desire that. Yet, there is something about this hospital experience that I, as Elliott's dad, will miss. For, as much as my body pines to lie down in a normal bed for the night, and as profoundly grateful I am that Elliott has been restored to health and can now go on to pick up his four-year old duties, I have been fortunate enough to spend lots and lots of time with Elliott as he has battled through all of this.

Some of the best time with Elliott has been when he has been both well enough and content just to hang out with his dad. I know, these days won't last, soon he will think I am extremely uncool simply by walking into the room. Monica already thinks that I confuse things simply by existing, or she said something to that effect today. I took it as a compliment. For now, though, for Elliott, I will do, and I love it.

Sustaining good relations through the long hours of hospitalization requires some good friends. Those of you in the know will recognize two of our most prized compadres: Woody and Buzz Lightyear. We also have several thousand stickers, a plethora of new books and games, toys soft and hard, and lots and lots of cards and pictures to look at. We will never be able to thank you enough for all of your incredible generosity.

Good food also helps, and we have a host of angels from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Ann Arbor, to thank for their generous love for us in providing dinner for the whole family every night of our stay here. People say that the sign 'The Episcopal Church Welcomes You' is not true. They should come to Ann Arbor, the welcome has been profound.

 In the end, though, these two weeks in Michigan have been about one thing: 'the balloon in my kidney'. Today, Dr. Stanley, our surgeon, came to tell us that the results of the morning's arteriogram were great. It is truly something to see the images of the interior of Elliott's left kidney, one image with 'balloon' (anuerysm) and narrowed artery (stenosis), the other without. The repair work Dr. Stanley did is impressive enough, and then you realize how tiny a scale this is. I have already waxed lyrical about Dr Stanley in another post, so tonight, Elliott gets the final word. As I walked through the hospital corridors this evening, on my way to get yet another Vitamin C boosted Naked Juice smoothie to fight off a Mid-West cold, I thought to myself that our boy had done it: Elliott had beaten the odds. As those words passed through my mind, I found it hard to hold back the tears. A few hours into our ICU stay, one of the docs told me that most kids he sees having this sort of surgery end up getting discharged with exactly the same drugs they came in with, so we should prepare ourselves for that. Elliott came with three different blood pressure maintenance drugs; he will leave with none. Whether that is the long-term outcome remains to be seen. It will be three to four months before we know for sure. In the meantime, I am celebrating our big man Elliott, who has been without pain meds for days, who ripped out his own GI tube from down his nose after a night of hallucinogenic torment, who laughed and laughed at blowing bubbles in the playroom, who somehow beat me at a Wii driving game despite the fact that he had never played a computer game before in his life, and who has remained unreasonably patient with two weeks of doing nothing but laying around in bed, waiting for someone to come and bother him. You beat the odds Elliott, and we love you with all our hearts.