After much anxiety and waiting, the neurosurgeon finally decided that Nathan would indeed need to have a shunt installed. We were on board with that decision, but with the weekend at hand and Christmas on the coming Tuesday, Nathan wasn't scheduled for surgery until the day after Christmas.
So we spent a long, long weekend along with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the hospital. As with Thanksgiving, Christmas was a very, very, lonely holiday.
We spent Christmas Eve at the hospital. And it was a lot more lonely for me than for Bekah. Before we knew that our baby was going to be so sick, we had originally planned on spending Christmas with her family in California. But since we were unable to do that, they decided that they would come and spend some time with us. They were scheduled to arrive on the 27th.
But in my family it is custom to spend Christmas Eve at my grandparents' house eating, playing games, opening presents, and having fun. So knowing that all my family was together without us, just added to my misery.
Christmas Day, however, was a little better. We slept in, opened the presents we had gotten each other, and just tried to enjoy the day as best we could. We then drove up to the hospital and spent the evening with Nathan, which was always nice. Santa had even visited him that morning and brought him a stocking full of goodies, including a little stuffed teddy bear dressed up like a surgeon, which we thought was very appropriate.
We then came home so that we could get some sleep before Nathan's big surgery day.
I've always wanted to ask. Is it hard to not stay the night at the hospital? That would kill me to leave. I'm sure it did for you guys. Will you do a blog on the nights away, how you guys decided to do that and how you've coped being away from his sweet spirit? I'm just curious. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to I just thought that it would be nice to know how you've both learned to be so GREAT :)
ReplyDeleteWow. I just spent the morning reading all of your past posts and, just...WOW. I knew he was bad and I remember you guys showing us the pictures of poor Nathan's stomach wound, but I really had no concept of the severity. What an awful rollercoaster to be on.
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