We were discharged tonight.
My poor little man didn’t even make it to the taxi before he fell asleep, slumped against a pillow in the wheel chair while waiting in the lobby. We carried him in to the house and laid him on the couch while we brought in the bags of toys and clothes that accumulated in this latest hospital stay.
I think the idea of coming home was such a relief for him that his body was finally able to relax and he was rewarded with a well-deserved slumber. In the last two weeks, he’s been poked, prodded, and tested, as well as having seizures, switching medicines, and dealing with a toxic reaction to one of them. For three days he lost control of his body and we had to help him sit up in bed and carry him to the bathroom, which must have been impossible for him to process when, days before, he was taking slapshots in the basement and running circles around his old man. That, and I can’t imagine what being stuck in a hospital room for more than two weeks does to a 5-year old. Tack of side effects to brain altering medicines. It’s an impossible recipe to grasp.
But tonight, we are home. He’s asleep in our bed while we watch him on a webcam, hoping he’ll sleep but waiting to see if he’ll wake up, if we’ll need to battle him to go back to bed, or if he’ll have another seizure.
Our son is anything but ordinary. Unfortunately, that characteristic carries over to his epilepsy, as well, and his treatment has been tough to get a handle on. Shortly after each of our previous hospital discharges, we found ourselves confronted with a new seizure and a new complication that brought us back to the emergency room.
We are hoping that this time will be different. We’re hoping that we found the right medicines. We’re hoping we made the right choice to come home and try day hospital rehab instead of in-patient. We’re hoping that being home will help him return to his baseline. We’re hoping that everything lines up, that we made the right choices, and that, soon enough, our son will be back in the basement, taking slapshots, and running circles around his old man.