Sunday night was a good night, despite medicine struggles before bedtime. Evidence suggests liquid Lasix is gross, and the next medicine was the color of sludge which will psych anyone out. When Wes finally lost the fierce battle and took the ugly-looking one he paused, thought, and said, “It tastes, like… chocolate.” He’s lucky he’s cute. On Monday morning Wes was ready to walk down to the lobby with Dad to meet Mom. The kid got stood up when Mom overslept, done in by Saturday’s Night of Many Wakings. By the time Emily rolled into the hospital at 9:30am Wes was having an echo done in his room and watching Despicable Me 3. The rest of Monday was spent moving around, gauging pain, visiting the rooftop garden, and other general activities. Dr. Emani stopped in to check progress, too.

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It became clear that he’s ready to go home, so early Monday evening Andrew walked back to the apartment to pack stuff up. Wes was awake at 5:30am Tuesday so Nurse Jess had us go down for a pre-discharge chest X-ray. Did a lot of sitting, reading, and reviewing do’s and don’t’s and medicines to prep for discharge. The last IV came out and the bandages came off the chest tube spot and the chest incision. A couple signatures later we are on our way a little after 1pm! We’ll arrive home around dinner time and Wes was telling everyone he saw about his plan to surprise Henry, who has no idea Wes is coming home today. Turn-about is fair play, after all.

Wes is really happy to be going home, of course, and so are we. He’s moving gingerly but making good progress each day. He’s back to his chatty self and now that all of the bandages are off he’s officially run out of things to fret about. We will fret a bit about activity restrictions. He told the discharge NP that he and his brother ‘really don’t rough-house that much’ which prompted eye rolls from Mom, Dad and the NP who has 3 boys, a 7 year old and 5 year old twins (one named Henry).

To think that we’re heading home a week and a day after arriving and only 4 days after surgery is overwhelming, but also somehow expected when you’re dealing with a kid as stubborn, strong, and special as Wes.