Home sweet home

Friends/family,

We're home! But we'll get to that in a few minutes... :-)

Today started off as another early morning in the hospital, but we were slightly anxious this morning because we knew the morning lab draw would determine the outcome of our day. We were actually excited when the lab lady came and woke us up to draw Brent's labs! We goofed off with the nurse for awhile this morning, unable to go back to sleep because we really wanted to go home. Once Brent's labs were drawn, we must've asked the nurse 3 times what his INR was. Finally she comes walking in and casually says "Ok, your lab test results are back and your INR was 1.9." We both let out a loud "YESSSSS!" and were SO excited! I'm pretty sure the nurse thought we were very weird until we explained to her that 1.9 was the magic number and that we'd been in the hospital for 9 days and really wanted to go home and move past all of this. The cardiologist told us on Monday that he wanted Brent's INR to jump from 1.3 on Monday to at least 1.9 on Tuesday before he could be discharged - so we knew there was a VERY good chance we'd be leaving the hospital today. After awhile, Megan (Nurse Practitioner) came in and told us she also thought we'd be leaving today and brought us some discharge information. Brent said to me "That's 2 out of 3 doctors, we're totally busting out of here today!" Finally the surgeon came in and said "Everything looks good, we can go ahead and let you go." I can't even begin to describe how relieved we were. Brent still has a long recovery ahead of him, but we wanted to be home. No more IV's, no more machines, no more measuring everything - just time to relax and recover (for both of us now - I do need to catch up on sleep!)

We hung out at the hospital for a little bit longer, and around 12:30 we were discharged. Brent's nurse the past 2 days gave me a hug and wished us well - we really bonded with a few of the nurses on the Telemetry floor at the hospital. We spent 5 nights recovering there and encountered some amazing nurses - according to Brent, they were much better nurses than he'd ever had! I like to think it's because I won them over empathizing with them about nursing. ;-) I also think the nurses are always pleasantly surprised to have a younger heart surgery patient - most of their patients are older, more complicated, more demanding, and don't recover as quickly as the younger congenital heart patients. Overall, considering the circumstances, we made the best of our hospital experience and I think Brent really put a smile on so many of the staff's faces - either through his positive personality or his delirium from pain pills. :-) That being said, we were SO incredibly happy to get in my car and come back to San Diego. Brent called a few friends on the drive home and told them he was "out of jail" finally. It really must have felt like that for him - he didn't go outside for a week!

We got back to the house around 3:00 (after stopping and picking up prescriptions and Brent's mail at his house.) Brent watched a movie and I brought everything in and started tidying up. I had a maid service come deep clean and scrub down my house last Saturday in preparation for our return - I'd never used a maid service before because I can't really afford it and I don't generally mind cleaning - but WOW is the house clean! It is definitely worth every penny - anything to help make sure Brent doesn't get sick and has the fastest possible recovery. My dog Sadie (actually she's Brent's dog now as well!) is still staying with our amazing petsitter and she'll be getting a bath and then coming back to join us on Friday - after Brent can get settled in for a few days. The nurse practitioner told us we could have a dog around as soon as we wanted, but we decided to wait a few days - Brent loves Sadie so much and I know he wants to see her, but I want him to rest a few more days.

We also had some amazing cards and packages waiting for us upon our return to the house. Brent's Grandma sent me the most thoughtful, touching card that made us both tear up! She sent me a sweet note and also included a picture of Brent with his family in 2001 at his cousin's wedding. On the back, there was a brief story of 3 dates from Brent's 6th open-heart surgery in 2001 to help encourage me which said: "May 24th - surgery, May 28th - home from hospital, June 9th - cousin's wedding." After Brent's 6th open-heart surgery, he was celebrating at his cousin's wedding 2 weeks later! It was so touching and reminded me of how quickly Brent recovers from surgeries. Grandma also included an amazing story about Brent's dad (Rick) and how he first noticed Brent was turning blue as a baby and alerted the medical staff - and so Brent's heart surgery saga began in 1982. She included a full-page drawing that Rick had mailed to her that showed his notes and pictures of a normal heart and what Brent's heart looked like. To us, it was the neatest drawing we'd ever seen of a heart and we want to get it framed! Unfortunately, Brent's dad passed away 6 years ago and having notes like that from Brent's birth and memories of his dad is such a cool thing to both of us. We were so very touched by Grandma's notes - and it made me think the little notes and memories I hold on to can truly be so amazing to someone else some day. I have a piece of paper that I kept after this hospital stay - while Brent was still intubated in the ICU, he kept writing me notes because he couldn't talk and he wanted to communicate with me. He filled up both sides of the paper while still under anesthesia and inttubated! Most of the writing is illegible but I remember what it says and how much it means to me.

Brent also received a gift from one of his close friends in Illinois that made him cry (he's totally going to kill me when he reads this, but it was SO sweet!) I went to grab some stuff from the car and when I came back in, Brent was sniffling. I was pretty concerned because the doctors kept telling me sometimes post-heart surgery patients get depressed from the overwhelming experience of having heart surgery and having to rest at home for so long, so I was thinking "Oh no, now he's sad...I'm sad...what're we going to do now!?" I asked him what was wrong and he said it was "a good thing" and he handed me a sweet note from a close friend of his. His friend had gotten him cufflinks for Brent to wear on our wedding day - airplane wings with Brent's dad's initials engraved on them. (Brent's dad was a pilot.) His friend thought he might like the gift a little early and I have to say, even though then we were both crying, it was the sweetest thing ever. It made Brent so happy to know he has such amazing friends who have been so supportive, caring, and thoughtful throughout his many heart surgeries! Brent's dad used to always be right by his side during his surgeries and always made sure Brent recovered well - he's told me a lot of stories about his childhood and his dad being right there with him in the hospital or at doctor's appointments. I'm also sure Brent's sad his dad won't get to see him get married, but we both know he's up in heaven smiling at him and he must be SO proud of Brent and how strong he is! The gifts we got today were just so sweet and made our homecoming that much better!

We also received a card and some date night money from my parents. Since we deserved a "date", I asked Brent what he wanted me to pick up for dinner for his first non-hospital meal and he immediately responded "Thai food!" (I was hoping for sushi, but I didn't just have heart surgery and Thai food is pretty darn good!) I made Brent shower (it had been 9 days - yuck!) and then we enjoyed delicious Thai take-out for dinner and watched a movie. He actually stayed awake for the entire movie! It was so wonderful because for a few hours, I forgot everything we'd been through the past 12 days and I felt like it was a regular date night! Brent really is recovering so well and I am SO grateful how good God has been to us through all of this. While we still don't understand why he needed surgery again so soon and why it happened right before our wedding, we both know there's a reason and have so much to be thankful for now.

So now Brent is peacefully sleeping all propped up in my bed. I know it sounds crazy, but I am super excited to be sleeping on my couch tonight! My couch is actually very comfortable, especially compared to the chair I was sleeping in at the hospital! :) I'll finally be able to get some much needed rest - and I know Brent will sleep a lot better here than he was sleeping in the hospital, which is a huge blessing.

There was also much discussion today about our wedding date/honeymoon and what we should do. We are still so torn and are not sure what to do, but we are leaning towards pushing it back about 4 weeks. It's a very tough decicion and one that's hard to make because Brent seems to be recovering so well and ideally I don't want to put off grad school - but Brent's health is #1 priority right now, so if he will enjoy our wedding day and honeymoon more a bit later, than I don't much care about grad school for now. My degree will be finished eventually! :-) We will decide within a week and I promise we'll let everyone know ASAP what we decide and how to proceed with travel plans, rsvp's, etc. Thank you so much for your patience regarding our wedding day situation - it's not ideal by any means, we would love to be going forth with everything as planned, it just is starting to seem less and less reasonable.

Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers - if you live in San Diego, feel free to come visit us now! Brent is now staying at my house near downtown San Diego, so call me if you would like to come by!

God bless,
Rachel