We were able to bring Hunter home on Saturday....Chris and I had to go to Toronto Sunday and Monday so I have not had a chance to update....Hunter was so happy to be home Saturday he literally screamed with excitement when he saw his potty!! hahahaha....he is so funny....he was excited to see his own toys too......

We are running antibiotics at home until December 22....then in for blood work and eventually book an appointment to have a new port put in....we are considering having it put in his back but it really depends on where in the back it goes since it sticks out...we don't want him to be uncomfortable if he sits in a chair or anything....

One positive about this entire thing is that Hunter is wanting to eat....like all the time!!! He walks around saying "eat, eat, eat".....hahahaah...we have found that he loves cherries....grapes...any fruit really....when he wasn't getting his full nutrition at the hospital he had the chance to feel hungry which doesn't normally happen for him....he loves eggs too!!! So we scramble him some each morning and he eats a few....not a lot but at least he's putting food in his mouth and swallowing the small bits......a huge jump from a month ago.....

Things have been busy at home....finally got a Christmas tree and decorated it today....still need to shop since being in the hospital didn't allow that to happen.....if I don't post before Christmas I hope everyone has a Happy Holiday!!!!!

Yesterday Hunter had his port taken out.....the surgeon said the infection on top of the port under the skin was "ugly"...there was no way the antibiotics would be able to kill the infection...his peripheral IV kept occluding so while he was out in surgery they removed it and put a new peripheral IV in his belly....sounds worse than it is but it laid flat with his body.....

Hunter went into recovery and at 1830hrs we were going to head back to his room...the floor where his room is called the recovery room and said we could not come back up because the room was not clean....this seemed odd since we were only out of the room for 2hrs! We found out that someone was being admitted into Hunter's room and he was being moved to a different room....the room Hunter was being moved to had someone in it still!! We were a little pissed to say the least since the poor kid just got out of surgery and wanted to sleep....we stayed in recovery until 2100hrs! Brutal.....once back on the floor and in a new room....the nurse came in and told us that the new IV could not have his TPN go through it because it was in his belly!!! WHAT!!!!! Hunter has probably lost almost 1lb since Monday....alot for his little body....and now we can't even run any TPN!!! We were pretty upset.....

When I got to the hospital this morning I spoke with Hunter's doctor....he said he was booking Hunter for a PIC line ( I guess it could be explained as being a temporary central line). He said if radiology could do it today we could go home on antibiotics tomorrow!!!! I was shocked...I thought we were in hospital for another couple of weeks. The way the last three weeks have gone we are not counting our chickens........

Hunter is booked for the PIC line tomorrow...he is put "on-call" starting at 1300hrs so they could call him anytime after that....then he can start getting his full nutrition again!!!

'Tis the season for re-admittance :(

Yesterday morning Hunter pulled out his needle....he cried a bit and I took the dressing off and took the needle off his chest. The blister that was there looked red and worse so I brought him in to the day unit at the hospital. His doctor took a look at it and said we need to give that site a rest so we are going to admit him and put in a peripheral IV. AAhhhhhhhhh........not what I was expecting.....the vein specialist came in and was able to get a peripheral IV on the second try....she took blood work and a culture of the blister. They started putting a steroid spray on the blister to clear it up. And of course we are having a snow storm right now so that just makes this even better for family coming to visit!

I drove through the snow storm to get to the hospital this morning...Chris's mom stayed with Hunter last night.....I called Chris on my way in and told him not to come to the hospital until later because the roads were so bad.....Hunter's doctor came and told me that the culture they took of the blister was still growing something even though he was on the antibiotics....therefore we needed to pull his line since the infection was being fought at for almost three weeks and was still growing. Not the news we were hoping for. The doctor said we would need a surgical consult to take the port out...then a week of antibiotics....then put in a new port.....

The surgeon who fixed Hunter's prolapse last week may be the surgeon to take out the port so at least we know him....and he may be able to do it as soon as tomorrow.....thanks to the bad weather and all the people who have been cancelling their surgeries.....its not official yet but will keep you posted.....

Home is where the heart is....

Yesterday morning we were told we may be able to head home after some blood work in the evening. The surgeon's came up and were happy with Hunter's progress after surgery....you would never have known he had surgery the day before...he was running around and having a great time with his little girlfriends up on the floor!

Hunter's port did not get any blood return Thursday morning so they took out the needle....they found there were two blisters under the needle....great.....they cleaned it up and put a longer needle in so it wouldn't be pressing on the blisters....they are not concerned about it but just want us to keep it clean etc and hopefully it won't progress to anything more.....

All of the docs came and checked out Hunter and they all agreed we could bring him home...so late last night Chris brought him home.....he was sleeping when Chris carried him through the door and he passed Hunter to me when we got to his bedroom...Hunter opened his eyes...looked around...and put his head back down and fell asleep.....

It was the best sleep I've had in several days........

Hunter was called for surgery at 1315hrs....I was able to gown up and go into the OR with him until he was put out. Hunter was out by 1350hrs and we went to grab a quick bit to eat before heading to the waiting room. We don't like to go too far just in case. I think we realized today just how stressed we were about the entire surgery. After lunch we went to the waiting room knowing Hunter would not likely be out of surgery until 1600hrs. Well at 1601hrs we started to worry more. That's when the "what ifs" start running rampant in your head! The surgeon came out to talk with us at 1615hrs and said everything went well. He told us Hunter has a "redundant" bowel which means he has excess bowel which is seen in cases like Hunter's. The surgeon feels the surgery was successful but advised us that the "redundant" bowel could prolapse out of the fixed portion of bowel. Likely it won't but it could.....so fingers crossed on that one.

We were finally able to see Hunter in recovery and he was groggy and generally unhappy....they gave him some gravol and he was out like a light sleeping in daddy's arms....Hunter has four little incisions on his belly so we will know better tomorrow or Friday when we can bring him home.