There's No Place Like Home

Yes, we're home again. And I can't tell you how good that feels. It's like taking a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven, then smothering it with honey-butter and letting your taste buds experience a little slice of heaven.

Home is definitely heaven to me.

We actually came home Friday about lunch time. Thursday night, Isaac finally hit 22cc of drained fluids in a 24 hour period. So Friday morning, the surgeon's team came in, removed the drainage tube from his lung (which went about as good as it could), then told us we could go home.

I was surprised. "I thought we had to stay 24 hours, then have a chest x-ray?" I asked.

The surgeon replied that with all the extra draining Isaac did and with how great his lungs sound that they were confident he would be fine to go home. I asked a few more questions, but he assured me all was fine and we could go home.

So I called my hubby. And found out it was the first round of lay-offs at Sprint. It was mandatory for everyone in his department to be on campus from 10 am to 4 pm. Yuck. Not good news. Especially since John had my GPS unit and let's just say I'm directionally challenged.

Unrelated funny story about being directionally challenged - When I first moved to Utah, I got lost trying to find my apartment building. I stopped to ask for directions. Everyone kept saying go North, West, or whatever and I swear I looked at them like they were talking a foreign language. It's not like I had a compass stashed in my car. What way was I supposed to turn? Then someone told me to head towards the mountains. What? There are mountains on both sides of the valley, which is why it's called a valley. Then they said to head towards the big mountains. OK - I'm from the Alleghenies in PA, and compared to those beautiful rolling mountains, the ones in Utah are mammoth. So I said, "They're all big." At this point, the people giving me directions were rolling their eyes at me. I just got back into my car and drove around until I found someone who gave directions like a normal person, and finally arrived back at my apartment complex. Yep. I'm directionally challenged.

Anyway, back to coming home. :)

I was lucky enough that Isaac's autism specialists found out we were coming home and what was happening and came to the rescue. Can I just say that Todd & Jill are totally awesome? I am so grateful that Isaac has such incredible people in his life. To make a long story short, Todd came up and played video games with Isaac while I packed the room. He helped us get loaded into our car, then we met up again outside of the parking garage and he led me back to the freeway. Whew! There's no way I would have made it on my own without stopping to ask for directions . . . somewhere. I have no idea where I would have stopped. A big, strange city isn't my ideal location for being lost. But then again, I guess it's better than being in the middle of farm central with no one around to ask, then running out of gas. Hmm . . . maybe I'll have to write a story about that.

By the time we got back to Olathe and dropped off Isaac's pain med prescription, it was lunchtime. So we made a McSonic run (McD's & Sonic are right next to each other near our house), then finally pulled into our garage. I told Isaac to go ahead and go in while I unloaded the car, then we'd have lunch. After a few trips, I went to check on him and found him laying on his bed, half asleep. I guess he was happy to be home, too.

We spent the remainder of the day resting and catching up on mail, etc. John finally did get to come home - and yes, we survived the first round of lay-offs. Round #2 is on March 13th, so we'll see how we do then. Our friend, Chris Wofford, brought us dinner last night, with some totally incredible homemade Ginger Snaps. I definitely need to get that recipe.

As you can see from my rambling, I'm in the process of de-stressing and much more chatty today than I have been all week. It's nice to see Isaac happy, relaxed, and much more comfortable. Big sigh of relief. I will post pictures from our stay later this weekend.

I hope you are all doing well. And btw -

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

And Happy Birthday Wishes to my brother Harry & my friend Teri.