Wes and Dad had a good final night at the hospital. Wes was a huge fan of night nurse Meg, beaming up at her when she did his midnight vitals. Emily arrived early at the hospital so Andrew could go back, get ready, and get everything Emily had packed up the night before from the apartment into the car. By 9:30am the car was packed, and Wes had his final chest x-ray, blood work drawn, and was happily taking his morning nap. Despite this early surge in activity, the rest of the day was a lot of waiting, as we had expected. Chest tube stitches eventually came out, Andrew went to the pharmacy to pick up the Aspirin and Lasix that Wes will continue to take at home, we took some walks, ate, took some more walks, and Wes napped again.

Eventually everything was in place, we had spoken to everyone we needed to, and Wes was discharged just after 4:00pm. We stopped for a leisurely dinner during which Wes ate a ridiculous amount of food (he ate fine in the hospital, but it seems that after a week even 14 month olds tire of hospital food eaten in a hospital room). It’s 8:30 and we are getting closer to home. It feels good. It’s also all still sinking in, everything that’s happened these past three weeks.

Our parade today did see a little rain, as is always the possibility. The rhythm guys popped in after they reviewed things for their final report and had noticed some missed beats over the past few days. This will be closely monitored with our local cardiologist but very much increases the likelihood of Wes requiring a pacemaker at some point, especially since having LTGA already placed him at a higher risk. The whole pacemaker discussion has been a roller coaster since the beginning. We’ve accepted the possibility from the get-go, it was just a bit of a downer to hear another change on discharge day.

We couldn’t be more proud of Wes during this journey. We had been concerned about how this experience would affect him and alter his spirit. It turns out that it was the opposite: it was his spirit that altered the experience. We know that his calm, playful, and cheerful disposition helped him, and us, every step of the way. He is the definition of resilient.

Thanks for following the story. We’ve used this as a way to keep a record for ourselves as much as a way to keep everyone up to date. The days all become such a blur – it will be nice to be able to recount specifics in the future. We’ll have a few more posts as he goes to follow up appointments, etc., but for the most part this is the happy ending we’ve been headed towards.