The beginning of a long road

Bobbi's physical recovery continues to progress appropriately; the biggest challenge is the mental and emotional facets of recovery. Yes, she's dealing with discomfort and flat out pain, and on top of that the altered mental state brought on by the stronger pain meds they're using at this point in the game. Many of the challenges that she deals with on a good day are obviously exacerbated during a physically and mentally stressful time like this. She's having a tough time.

Mira had an appointment with her pulmonologist at Gillette this morning, so we juggled things such that last night when I picked Rinnah and Leah up from their church stuff, I did so in the van with Mira's chair loaded up. We drove down for a late evening visit with Bobbi, and left Mira's chair outside of Bobbi's room. This morning, then, the plan was that my mom would drive Reuben and Krassi to their therapy appointments in the van, taking Rinnah (7), Evania (4) and Gloria (2.5) along with her. I would take Mira and Eben with me in the Jetta to Mira's appointment where Matt would meet us at the door with her chair. Owen (13) would come along with me (and some of his school work) so he could see Bobbi, and Leah (11) would stay home alone to work on her stuff.

All went according to plan until about 10 minutes after I'd sent Mom off with her crew and I realized that I'd forgotten to take the wedge that goes behind Mira's removable seat out of the van (well, I suppose we can improvise with a handful of towels) AND also Eben's car seat was still in the van. That's harder to improvise. So. Regroup. Thankfully he was just waking up and hungry, so instead of leaving at 9, I nursed him at 9, passed him off to Leah, and left at 9:15 with Mira and Owen for Mira's 9:30 appointment. Thankfully, again, traffic is pretty light at that time of day, and with Matt meeting us at the door, he was able to swoop her right in and still be essentially on time.

The big event of the morning is that Bobbi's loaner chair arrived, and she's been cleared to be out of her bed, so they transferred her over and Owen and I got to take her for a walk down the main hallway of Gillette.

This is by far the happiest look she's given us since coming out of surgery.

 Walking down we ran into Dad and Mira coming back from Mira's appointment, which was beautifully routine. Dad also took the opportunity to stop through the wing that Mira usually stays in when she's inpatient to say hi to some of the nurses that have cared for her, and enjoy seeing her when she's NOT sick.

 Out into the sky-way - I have so many memories of being in this sky-way with Reuben when we were here at Gillette eight years ago when his epilepsy was first diagnosed. We watched the first big snowfall of the year from that bridge eight years ago. Nothing so interesting today, except maybe the fact that every third staff person that walked across the sky bridge was someone I recognized. Phew.

Bobbi's appetite has been very poor. We're hoping it picks up soon to help her body heal. Our amazing friends, the Dunmires, who have helped us on a bi-monthly basis with [absolutely incredible] meals, stopped over tonight with a meal for us so we could have some of Bobbi's favorite things to take to her. If Matt gets a chance, he's going to stop through home tonight and pick up some of the chicken and yellow rice, green beans with almonds, and deliciously dark brownies. That would be enough to wake up anyone's appetite!