Being Home...

From Audrea...

Being Home
Today at 8:25am

After being told I was going home yesterday, I was up, packed, and ready to go by 10:00 a.m.
We didn’t leave until after 4:00.

Almost as soon as we got home, my TPN arrived, as did my Angel of Mercy, the nurse who came to show us how to hook everything up.

My first attempt to stick a needle full of vitamins into the TPN bag resulted in a contaminated bag and my finger bleeding. Jeff took over after that because we had to throw the TPN bag away. Each one of them costs about 1000 dollars. I was horrified that I’d messed it up and I refused to touch anything else.Once the nurse left and Jeff stuck my bag and pump on my personal i.v. pole, I just stopped thinking.

I felt so overwhelmed.

He took the bag/pump off the pole and put them in the back pack, especially made for this stuff. I couldn’t get the bag situated where it didn’t hurt my new central line (below my right collarbone) and I just lost it. I cried and cried and said, “I don’t want to wear it. I don’t want to wear it.”Jeff tried to comfort me, saying that it was just temporary, but I still cried my heart out.

Home is where life is supposed to be the most normal and most comfortable, and yet, even that has changed for me. It was (and will be) so hard to wrap my mind around.When I finally managed to pull myself together and remind myself that the TPN was keeping me alive and I should be grateful, I felt a little less overwhelmed and could focus on the 3 little reasons I was glad to be home.

I can’t pick up the children and that’s so hard. But, Jeff picked up Lexi put her in my lap. I rocked her while she drank her last cup of milk for the day, and then my mom came in and put her in her crib.The older two were much harder to put down. They cried for me, they cried for Jeff, and it was well past 9:00 before they were settled and sleeping.In the middle of the night I woke up to find Jeff gone and a little replacement (Gideon) in bed with me. It was rather nice to have that snuggly little guy near me. He’d been skittish of me and my bandages and boo-boo’s for awhile, and wouldn’t come near me when I got home yesterday.

I know this journey will get easier, but right now, just pray for a me to be able to create a home routine for myself that doesn’t seem so overwhelming.