no place like home

Yesterday morning when the doctors came around, the doctor from Thursday said, "Why is she still here?" The doctor that has been following us all week said he had no reason to keep us any longer.  Which was good, because we were pretty much finished.  I told him we were very comfortable taking her home without the IV boost of calories and that we wanted the picc line out.  He called our surgeon, who was adamant that she stay on it for two weeks until we follow up with him at his clinic.  After he hung up, he told me that it is ultimately our decision, and everyone on the team, (except our main doctor) doctors, nurse practitioner, nurses, and nutritionist all felt like she is doing extremely well and that we are capable of meeting her needs.  So we chose to pull it.  We'll have to face his wrath in a couple of weeks when we follow up if she isn't gaining weight, but she is ready to do what it takes to make it work.  What it takes-meaning eating extremely high calorie foods and being brave enough to try new protein options, as proteins are so important for healing.  All on a soft-food diet.  We've already been given some great options to try, and are hopeful that we can get her where she needs to be to heal quickly and completely.

So at about 3:00 yesterday afternoon, we headed home.  It was a long, hard two hours for Shawnie but she was so happy to be going that she handled it better than I thought she would. She had to lay down and sleep when we made it home, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing in her very own bed.  Last night was the best night's sleep either of us have had in a couple of weeks and today is going to be a beautiful day.  There's just no place like home!