We're home

I, Jeff, stayed in the hospital room with Shalla on Monday night. It was quite an experience. This was day 5 and I was beginning to tire of hospital food, so I went walking to find a place to eat. I was set on getting to Zorba's for some Greek. It was about 10 blocks away, but I was ready for a walk while Shalla caught some zzzz's. It was warm (40 degrees), but raining. I aborted my walk at block 7 when I came upon 'The International Cuisine'. I popped in and proceded to emulate Homer Simpson when he ate the seafood restaurant out of business. All you can eat king crab legs, sushi, oysters, General Tsao, Mongolian Grill and Ice cream is what I needed to celebrate my last evening in Rochester. If you are ever in the area, I would highly recommed The International Cuisine.

6:00 AM rolled around and the hospital started buzzing. The first visit was from the nurse to drop off some pain meds. 6:30 the neurosurgeon stopped by to see how things were going. He went through some of the things that may happen and what to watch out for. We discussed Shalla's hearing and he was very pleased with the current status and said it should improve from where it is right now once some swelling resides and the fluid drains. He did state that it is possible it could get worse, which was not what either of us wanted to hear. He said we really won't know where it will end up until the 3 month checkup. At that point, everything should be stabilized. We were visited by another Dr. about 7:00 and he was just checking to see how things were going. The Neuro and ENT residents came by about 7:30. They discussed the staple removal process and said that I could go ahead and do it, but they generally recommend that it be done by a medical professional. Shalla and I agreed this would probably be best, but they gave me the removal tool anyway. The nurse shift change happened at 8:00 and our nurse came in and went over the check out process. She ordered up the medication from their in house pharmacy so we could take it with us and not have to make another stop.

The Mayo pharmacy turned out to be one of the few bad experiences that we had, and much of that was due to the impending snow storm that put us on a tighter schedule than we would have liked. 9:00 rolled around and the snow started falling. I loaded up all of our belongings and made a few trips to the car and also ran across the street to grab a continental breakfast from the Fiksdal Hotel (I didn't feel guilty since I had stayed there a few nights earlier) and tracked down a box to haul the flowers home in (Thank you everyone who sent these, they really brightened up the room). I was back and anxious to hit the road by 9:45, but we had no drugs. During the Price is Right they were broadcasting all of the school closings and I was beginning to wonder if we would get out of town on time. I bugged the nurses desk a few times to have them check on the pharmacy. 11:15 the call came up that the drugs were ready. An orderly was to take Shalla to the pharmacy and Shalla asked that I go get the car warmed up. I pulled the car around and waited, and waited. I found one of my waiting room friends that was out burning a Marlboro and asked her to watch my car in the fire lane while I ran in to see what was going on. Shalla was in line waiting and at that time they announced the winter storm warning saying that travel was not advised and the airport was closed. I went back to the car, and in the hallway I ran into my 'friend' and she informed me the car was still there, although she was not within site of it and was walking further into the hotel. I got back to the car and waited for a while when an orderly came out, without Shalla, and said I needed to go to the pharmacy and pay for the meds (which the nurses said would be billed to us). There of course was a line at the pharmacy which felt like it took forever, but it was probably only about 10 minutes. We finally got on the road.

A few inches of snow had fallen and the wind was howling making visibility about 50 ft. It was the worst driving conditions that I have ever been in. The only thing that saved us is that the highway had not drifted over so I could still see the pavement. It took us about 90 minutes to get to Cannon falls, about 40 miles. I did manage to leave imprints in the steering wheel from gripping it so tightly. I'm really glad Shalla was buzzed up on narcotics or she would have been really nervous.

Back to what you all are looking for:
Shalla is home and doing really well. She is getting around pretty well and had no trouble getting up the stairs. I was there helping her, but she did it on her own. Her balance, strength and overall comfort is well ahead of where I anticipated it would be 5 days into this. There is still a long way to go, but we'll take it one day at a time and deal with the additional battles as they come up. Brooke was very excited to see Shalla tonight. They are snuggled up in bed right now. Brooke fell asleep in her arms around 7:15. I think she is ready to be home for a while. Thank you to everyone who helped transport Brooke and care for her while we were out of town.