Growing with Kerstin: Raising a child with "special needs": A Thanksgiving to remember!

Friday, December 6, 2013

A Thanksgiving to remember!

Twenty-six days after arriving in Birmingham, Alabama for Kerstin's spinal fusion, it is Thanksgiving Day 2013. We wake up to possible snow flurries and 21 degrees of bone chilling cold!

Today is the day that I have been waiting on. I know with every fiber of my being that this is the last morning we will wake up in room 1046 at the Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children at Children's of Alabama!

The nurses are changing shifts and not one doctor has come around like they had been coming on previous days. Around 5:30 and 6 a.m. I knew to be sitting up or at least awake becasue they would make their rounds and I didn't want another one of her doctors to scare me by rocking me to wake me. Yes, that happened!!

Finally, around 8 a.m. we got word that all of the doctors that had been following Kerstin's treatment and caring for her were in fact communicating and about to make their rounds. First, my friend, the doctor that rocked me constantly saying "mom, mom...", came in with his team to say that Kerstin's levels were continuing to improve and since she had tolerated smaller boluses of her Pedisure the day before and even smaller of the Pedialyte the day before that, it would be safe and okay for her to go home, as long as her admitting doctor agreed. I knew that we would be going home because her nurses had previously told us that we could go home if her amylase and lipase levels were in a safe range. So...it's time for a HAPPY DANCE & HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Kerstin is headed home.
Our time in our "apartment" has come to an end! Truly Thankful.

We are now home, Kerstin is healing and making great strides on her road to recovery! I'm including some pictures of our stay at Children's and Kerstin's before and after surgery pictures. Even her pouting Thanksgiving night. I think she misses the attention and the "friends" she made in the hospital.