Home for the next 4 weeks is a condo downtown Rochester, USA. We left St Mary's Hospital after lunch (Andrew ate poached egg and portabello mushroom on toast). It's a cold day (39 degrees at 1pm) but the sun is shining and it feels so good to be going 'home'. The doctors, nurses and staff at St Mary's have been terrific - we are completely overwelmed with the good care and kindness shown by all. The staff on the 7th floor packed us off with sandwiches for tea and bottles of various flavours of LifeWater to keep Andrew going till I get to the shops. We needed a trolley to get all our stuff to the front door - by now we had 3 laptops going and the hospital room looked more like an office than a sick room. I had to take enough white vinegar solution and syringes too as today is Sunday.
The doctor prescribed Andrew a sleeping pill last night and he slept soundly for 7 hours - he woke up this morning feeling almost brand new. He has upped his intake of fluid too - he's now trying to stick to a regime of 200ml per hour. Perhaps he should have done this when they removed the IV and it was dehydration that was causing him the stomach pains. Well, his advice to anyone in the same boat is to drink lots and walk lots.
We only got a light dusting of snow yesterday and it didn't last long but it is forecast again for tonight. Luckily our condo is attached to the Mayo Clinic and shopping centres and restaurants via Skyways and Subways so we don't have to worry about ever going outside. We're more than happy now though just to sit here and relax and enjoy being normal again.
Before I say cheerio, we want to thank you all for kind words, thoughts and prayers - you gave us strength!
love
Trish & Andrew
x
ps will keep you posted as things progress
