Discharge!

13 weeks, 1 major brain surgery, 5 minor brain procedures, 8 hospital rooms (although two of them were the same, just at different times), 3 long MRIs, probably about a dozen quick brain MRIs, 30 radiation treatments, countless therapy sessions, innumerable nurses, residents, therapists, doctors, fellows, etc.  Finally Anna came home today with discharge papers in hand.  Hip, hip, hooray!

The only hiccup in the whole process had to do with her 14 prescriptions ... blood pressure, heart, anti-seizure, steroids, gut health, and on and on.  We found out about five minutes before discharge that our insurance does not cover the hospital pharmacy for outpatient prescriptions.  They let us out of the hospital anyway knowing that our pharmacy would take care of things.  With a county wide effort (literally), our local pharmacy was able to fill all of Anna's prescriptions before closing time tonight.  Local pharmacies are awesome :)

Anna's nurses, doctors, and therapists orchestrated a send off for her down the hallway of P4 as we left, complete with a corridor of bubbles.  This girl was all smiles.

We are so glad to have her home.  Life is going to take a lot of work, and we're already exhausted, but it will be worth it.  Bedtime tonight took a lot more work than it has in a long time, but there weren't really any tears ... it just took a really, really long time.  We hope we are able to find a rhythm sometime soon, and don't have too many unexpected events happening.

Thanks for all of the support in the last 3+ months; we're certainly going to continue to need it.  In fact, just as we thought life was settling down for the night, Anna threw up her bedtime feed, and in the process her ng-tube came out.  Sigh.  A phone call (and 1/2 hour plus of clean up) later we learned we had the option of doing an emergency room visit tonight or an early morning visit tomorrow.  We opted for the trip in tomorrow.  Hopefully that will be okay.

Time for prayers

Thanksgiving
Please give thanks that all three of our children are sleeping under the same roof tonight.
Please give thanks that Kate slept 12+ hours on Saturday night and had no further cold symptoms.
Please thank God for all of the amazing people with whom we have worked at the hospital in the past three months; it will be hard not to see them on a daily basis anymore.
Please thank God for Anna's strength, healing, and determination.

Requests
Please pray for strength, wisdom, and endurance for Matt and I as we enter this next chapter.
Please ask God to be with us as we meet the next round of therapists and nurses this week.
Please continue to pray that Anna's treatments are 100% effective.
Please pray for a smooth transition for our family.
Please pray for baby Charlie's family.  His heart gave out over the weekend and he entered his Heavenly home.  Please pray that his family continues to feel God's presence in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

Thank you for your continued help and support.