Home, Home on the Parkway....

...where the Bean and the big sister play.

We are headed home. Kai's levels went back up overnight, but such a small increase that we get to go home AND we won't have to take an additional Bili Blanket home with us.

I reread my earlier post and realized it was quite stern and negitive. It wasn't meant to be so, but the interminible wait and the strange facilities make it hard to figure out how to pass the time. We are much relieved to be heading home.

The nurses have been pretty great for the most part, but it's hard when there are so many other sick kids that need so much more attention and we just have nothing with which to operate. There is no food here (the cafeteria is seriously lacking. ) I tried to get from one building to another following the signs they have posted and got lost in the tunnel system. There is no space to inhabit comfortably in the room (Alana spent about 36 hours in a 3 x 3 foot space, because there is very little other choice.) We just asked for everything we couldn't find, and it made us feel like a bother to people who are busy taking care of seriously ill children. It just made us both feel in the way and more than a little stir crazy.

I can so empathize with my sister Sarah's complaints about hospital stays-- there are no mileposts to guide your day-- the coming and going and checking and poking and no answers and different answers. After a while your head just swims. Add any emotional baggage on top of that and the maelstrom of discombobulation would overwhelm anyone. There is a Dad who sits at the end of the hall-- he is always on the same folding chair. Any time he I go out the door, he is there. Most of the time he is looking at the same area on the wall-- no eye contact, not reading anything, vacant and expressionless. I just feel for him every time I step out of the room and totally understand why-- it's how you cope. This same scene is played out here over and over and it just exhausts me to think of all the families and all they go through.

So, time to try going home from the hospital-- second attempt.