January 22, 2008, will always be one of our favorite and most memorable days -- the day Nathan was discharged from the NICU! To say that we were excited for that day would definitely be an understatement! There were times when we didn't know if we would ever see this day. But now it was finally here! When we arrived at the hospital we were extra excited to see that one of our favorite nurses, Ashlee (pictured above), was on duty and assigned to Nathan for his last day.
Now, we don't know what most people's discharge days are like, but ours was extremely long! Much, much longer than we expected, in fact. Which we found to be particularly odd since it had been planned for a week!
Anyway, the biggest hang up that day was that Nathan was still waiting for his follow-up with ophthalmology before he could be discharged. Since he had been on ECMO and had issues with hydrocephalus, the ophthalmology appointment was a definite necessity before we could leave. And they were running behind that day.
Additionally, we ran into some delay getting Nathan's prescriptions and medications (there were quite a few of them) from the pharmacy. It seems that they were backed up that day as well.
So we got to spend the morning and the afternoon reminiscing and saying good-bye to all of our NICU friends. Even though we were so excited to finally be leaving, it was also sad to be leaving at the same time. After 4 1/2 months, a few of them had become close friends and some of them almost seemed like family. So that aspect of leaving was more than a little bitter-sweet.
Then, around 4pm, we finally got the news that everything was ready and that they were ready to review the discharge paperwork with us and we could be on our way!
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