Duluth Update 8 / The Conclusion

I’m home. The major ordeal is almost behind me. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to post that. How much I’ve wished for this. How much I’ve yearned for this. I pushed hard for this day to happen both with my attitude but also with showing the medical staff that I can do this on my own too.

I’ve been off all of the IV meds for at least 24-48 hours, completed OT/PT training, showed them I can handle dressing changes on my own, etc.

My white blood count crept up last night a little bit but it wasn’t enough to stop them from letting me go. It did give them some pause though. They think it might be related to going from IV to oral so we’ll watch it closely. If I start going backwards, then I’ll have to go back to Duluth. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Other than that, there were no other concerns to make them want to hold me another day.

It took close to eight hours to actually get discharged between all of the departments, including pharmacy. Pharmacy always takes the longest. That’s one thing Essentia really needs to work on. When someone is discharged, you shouldn’t have to wait two and a half hours for pharmacy! I felt so bad for Mom and Corbin waiting for me the whole time but so grateful they did!

Now that I am home, my plan is to continue working on my strength. I’m still pretty sore and not able to move around a lot with my legs. I’m night and day different from yesterday, however. I have ZERO clue on why I lost so much strength during that time…it’s so weird. I didn’t have this last time I was at a hospital for a few days. It’s incredibly frustrating to not be 100% right away but I just need to keep working on the exercises they gave me to build everything back up again. My plan is to sleep on the couch since I don’t want to chance going up and downstairs during the night. The couch is still much better than the hospital beds, any day. Mom and Corbin got me some food for the fridge and freezer, including those protein boost shakes which is probably also a good idea again.

I’m nowhere close to being done, however. I still have to go to MANY follow up appointments now. I still have three drain tubes in me that need attention along with a giant hole in my abdomen from surgery that hasn’t healed up yet. I’m still at high risk for infection and complications. I’ll keep posting updates as I feel they’re relevant. I have no clue when chemo will start up again, either.

Thanks again everyone. For everything. To all of the nursing staff, you treated me with the utmost respect and admiration? I’ve never met a classier group of people who, sometimes had to run, to my side. To the non medical staff, whether it was stopping by visiting me, liking a post on here, commenting, texting, sharing, whatever…it made things easier getting through. I won’t be probably taking too many visitors at home from awhile but I’ll keep people in the loop. I leave you with some sunshine that I FINALLY got to see for the first time in weeks. Don’t take things for granted, everyone.