Home Sweet Home

The day that I never thought would come has finally arrived. Abby finished her radiation treatments on Wednesday and on Thursday night, Abby was released from the hospital. We drove home that night, not wanting to spend another night away from home. We are so grateful to be back home, though we are adjusting to a new normal.

Abby now sleeps in our bed so that we can watch her monitors and make sure she stays hooked up to all her machines. She is hooked up to a pulse ox whenever she is sleeping or we are driving. At night, she is also attached to a mist collar to help deliver extra humidity to her lungs. This has an air compressor attached to it, so it's fairly loud. She also has a portable suction machine that goes every with us and it is very loud. Luckily it hasn't woken up Alexis yet. The last large piece of equipment that she has is a portable oxygen tank to use in case of emergency.

Unfortunately, Abby has atelectasis right now. This means part of her lung is partially collapsed. They believe this was caused by the fast, shallow breathing that she has been doing since her surgery. We are hoping this is what has been causing her high heart rate and fevers. We are doing chest percussion therapy to help this portion of her lung expand.

Last Tuesday, Abby had a follow-up with her opthamologist and he was very happy with her right eye's progress, even without doing any patching while she was in the hospital. At times, her right eye is fully open. It is tracking with her left eye, but does not have the same range of motion as the left one yet.

We will return to Little Rock next Friday for overnight chemo and will continue to go to Little Rock every Friday, plus numerous other appointments.