I would like everybody out of my room

This was the sentiment relayed to us when Seth, Dad and I arrived to Alistair's room this morning. Grandma stayed with Alistair last night. They had quite an active night and he was very chatty and not wanting to sleep. So she left this morning to go home and recover a bit. I was talking to Alistair, who seemed anxious or something was wrong and he said something about wanting to leave. I told him that we all wanted to leave and that we were working on it. Then he said, "No you!" I said, "Oh, you want me to leave? Ok, I will do that. Do you want Daddy or Papa to stay with you?" He said, "I would like everybody out of my room." We were inclined to comply since the nurse was in his room and would be for a bit. He asked for it, who were we to say no!? Soon after his Occupational and Physical Therapists showed up and worked with him. Then Papa spent most of the morning supervising in his room while other services visited; Occupational, music, massage (which he requested) and another dog visited today. In the early afternoon we headed out to the atrium to eat our lunch. Alistair had used the bathroom and when we was done, they put him in his wheel chair to sit for a bit. I asked him if he wanted to come join us while we ate our lunch since he already had his. He told me, "that would be lovely." Then he had some ice cream while we ate.

We have made some major headway on getting out of here. We are hoping Sunday. Tomorrow morning Dr. Dearani will be checking Alistair's sternum incision. If all goes well, he will hopefully give the green light for us to leave. We are really anxious to get Alistair into an in-patient rehab program as he is already starting to make big improvements and with more help would multiply those improvements. The Neurologist who has been following Alistair this week actually told us she has high hopes for Alistair to recover, which is a huge thing for her to say. Dr. Dearani also concurs with her. We have high hopes too, but the road will be hard and will require lots of help and intense work. 

Today we made the decision to begin the process of getting home outside of the hospital. Tomorrow, my Dad will be traveling home with Gillian. My Dad had a very hard time separating from our hospital tribe. I think he didn't want to leave us and the support he has been providing, but more over I think he didn't want to leave his grandson. My Dad has been very hands-on with Alistair and hasn't been afraid to dive in and help with stuff like toileting, transferring and eating. He has been an integral part of our support system and was a welcome respite for the rest of us. In my opinion we tasked him with a very important job and getting Gillian home safely where she can begin to get back to a normal routine was very important to us. She will be staying with Uncle Ethan and Aunt Jen next week to go to day camp with her cousins. She is pretty excited! At some point she is going to have to come home and face our life. Our normal is not anymore and our new normal, at least for a while, will certainly impact her and we need to figure out how to make it work with her in it!

Another day for the fundraiser and people's generosity have blown us away. I don't even know how we will ever thank everyone appropriately. The money raised will not only go toward getting us home where Alistair can start to recuperate, but will also go toward making temporary adaptive modifications to our home for Alistair to be able to get around as well as outpatient therapy beyond what insurance will cover. Here is the fundraising link to review and/or share: Bring the Hennessey's Home

Tonight the Sandholm's came to visit. Sully had his Ipad with him and sat with Alistair in his bed and helped him play games. It was awesome and Alistair seemed to be enjoying spending time with his friend. We thanked Sully later for spending time with Alistair and not treating him any different than he normally would aside from giving him some help with the Ipad. We came back to the house with them and had dinner and it was nice, once again, to have a mental break and spend time with some friends. This whole experience has been so much "easier" with having friends and family nearby to provide support and help.