Weekend in Maine

We were discharged from the CICU at Boston Children’s on Friday afternoon.  Because Ellie is still ventilator dependent, we were not able to move to the cardiac step-down unit before discharge.  It’s not common to be discharged from a critical care unit… so it can be bumpy at times, but it wasn’t too bad.  We went our way with only 7 daily doses of medication (we came in with 14).  Two of those doses will drop off tomorrow and they may drop another at our follow-up appointment today.  That would bring us down to just 4 doses of meds a day (propranolol for storming and aspirin for cardiac post-op).  That’s amazing!  We can no longer make jokes about her being on Viagra, though… dang it!  We have a follow-up appointment to get a chest x-ray and EKG today and they want to see that she’s nice and stable before they send us all the way back to Ohio.

We enjoyed our time in Boston, but I’m not one for city life, really.  We liked to have so much within walking distance, and always a new place to try and things to do (the hospital gave us tickets to a Sox game while we were there… awesome)!  But this country girl was ready for something slower and quieter.  Per the suggestion of our primary nurse, we headed north to the southern coast of Maine.  We stayed in Ogunquit through the weekend.  We didn’t arrive until dark on Friday, so we did nothing more that pop across the street to a restaurant.  The guy who referred us said, “it has bar food… dinner if you want”.  Sounded like our kind of place.  When the menus were void of prices on most items, we knew we were not in our comfort zone.  When the waitress came around with complimentary amuse bouche, we both laughed hysterically.  This was a little too fancy for my t-shirt and jeans… but hey, it was the only place within walking distance and in our defense, it was described as having “bar food”.  It was delicious… but we may have been a little out of place.  It was dark with nice landscape lighting around the full-length windows.  We heard another guest say, “Oh, look – an animal!”.  Another guest facetiously said, “I think it’s a bear”.  It was an opossum… a gross, nasty opossum wandering through the landscape, classing up the joint a bit.  Nice!

Saturday and Sunday were beautiful.  It was a little cloudy, but still very nice on Saturday.  We walked out onto the beach with Ellie… JUST ELLIE!  This was incredible.  The first few days of Ellie’s life she was tethered to monitors and cords and such… then we were able to bring her home for a while with nothing.  In other hospital stays, she was back to wires and such… and then at two-and-a-half months, she was in Cincinnati.  While there, she was never free of wires and tubes.  She came home with some pretty schnazzy accessories that we learned to tote around at all times.  It just became the norm.  So to walk out onto the beach with a baby in the stroller, and pick up just the baby and walk out into the surf was awesome.  We hadn’t held “just a baby” in seven months.  We were able to put her in one of the baby carriers and walk through shops and such with her.  I treasured this.  Putting the boys in infant carriers was one of my favorite things… we haven’t had Ellie in a carrier since she was about a month old.  She was either tethered to a million things or simply too hot (cardiac babies tend to be sweaty).  Celebrations!

Sunday was even better.  On Sunday we walked to Marginal Way… an ocean-front walking path with breathtaking views.  It was a long walk, but so worth it.  The weather was perfect, too.  I only wished I’d brought my nice camera so that I could maybe do a little justice to how pretty this place is.  This is somewhere I’d come again in a heartbeat!  I’d want to bring my boys, though.

We’ll be headed out soon to take Ellie to her follow-up, then start the trek home.  I can’t wait to see those little guys.  I miss them so very much.  I’m also looking forward to cooking and eating in my own house… this eating out business is fun for a bit, but I’d much rather be eating at home.  As long as there aren’t surprises in today’s appointment, we should be home late tomorrow.  Fingers crossed!

Here are some pictures from our time in Maine… it really is so beautiful here!

Happy, happy girl

Okay... so this was from last Thursday, she was saying goodbye to Jess, her primary nurse.

Waving frantically as we waited for Daddy to bring up the van to pick us up.

Daddy is her 2nd favorite person (after Lance)... I think she likes him a little

Updated incision picture... looking beautiful

Showing off her toe touch skills

Along Marginal Way... beautiful!

Okay, yes... this is a picture of a rock.  It was so cool to see the rocky coast AND beach together.  This is one where I really could have used my DSLR, dang it.