Home!

All,

8 days after surgery we sprung Miss Madeleine from the hospital at about 3:30pm today. She came home on 24 hr feeds and there was some debate as to whether she could come home because the surgical team wanted her to be at 'full home settings' meaning they wanted her to be back to her 14hr/70ccs per hr schedule. Luckily the CICU team and Brent and I were all on the same page in thinking that was silly and decided to get her out of the hospital and complete her home settings goal at HOME!

My terse posts over the past few days were primarily based on the fact that mid-week it became exceedingly apparent that Flu season was in full stride in the DC area and my worst nightmares of this surgery could possibly come true... Since mid-august when we started planning this surgery my one and only goal was to get it done before flu season, and there we were with a healthy kid sitting in the ICU as the flu season took hold. I never was a germ-a-phobe however as most of my close friends/co-workers would vouch, I am a full on freak about germ spreading at this point. If someone sneezes I am the first to ask if they are feeling well! I realize I am crazy and on this point- I don't care!

I am going to dig thru old pitures to find some pre-takedown pix and take a picture of her belly post surgery - it's pretty impressive. Her little bum is hurting and is pretty raw. All of this was to be expected and we are using top of the line bum paste in addition to very frequent diaper changes.

We have our ace nursing team lined up for the next week so we are feeling good.

Thank you for all you have done for our family, particularly for the last week.... Here's to a good winter season and bye bye trach here we come!

Kirsten, Brent & Madeleine