Back to School

Monday marked the first day of fourth grade for Alistair! Only missing about 2 weeks of school isn't too bad. I thought for sure it would be much more back at the beginning of August! We had an early morning meeting with his principal, school nurse, teacher, school psychologist and the 3 therapists (OT, PT, & Speech) in regards to getting an IEP going for him. Meanwhile my Dad had come up the night before and was here to get the kids ready and off to the bus stop. Alistair wanted to ride the bus to school. The first step is a doozy and he needs a bit of a boost. But otherwise he handled it just fine. My Dad said Alistair told him he was nervous, but I think it had to do more with having a helper at school and how that would be perceived rather than just school in general.

After our meeting we met Dora, his paraeducator, and gave her a quick rundown on Alistair and his needs. She is very nice and seemed excited to meet him! As she headed down to the classroom to meet the teacher, we met the bus at school and helped Alistair off. We asked him if he wanted us to walk him to his classroom and he said that he wanted to line up with the rest of his class and walk down when it was time. Ok with us! So we walked him to his line, his classmates were pretty excited to see him and were even more excited when we told them he was there for school and not just visiting again! We told him goodbye and left.

I had to pick him up a bit early for his cardiology appointment. Dora walked him up, which was great as I could get a report about how it went! She said he did wonderfully. He was attentive in class, asked questions, participated in class discussions and did really well with having to dictate to her while she wrote his answers. She said he got around school just fine, but could tell as the day wore on that he got tired (lots of stairs!). She said he was noticeable less spunky in the afternoon than he was in the morning! Mrs. Harper sent me an email later and also remarked how great he did. The one piece of information nobody had a handle on was how to predict how Alistair would do in the classroom. It was a huge unknown since he didn't have many opportunities to practice prior to returning to school. But he seemed to do fine! He also remarked that Dora was, "not that bad!" In fact he chose her over me to accompany him on his field trip tomorrow. Fine with me, I applaud the independence and some space from us who he has been with non-stop since July 8th!

Tuesday he had another great day. Dora remarked that he has such a great sense of humor and has lots of interesting things to say! I had to pick him early for occupational therapy. After an hour of therapy, his therapist brought him out and made the remark that he is one of the hardest working kids she has met...this was her first day meeting him. She said that when kids have one arm and hand more dominate than the other, they tend to favor it and it is a chore to get them to work on the other. Alistair has not voiced much about his right arm and hand, but I know he is motivated to regain his range of motion and use as he is naturally right handed. He can do some things with his left and his left arm is much easier for him to move and manipulate. But this is just another example of Alistair knowing he has work to do and does it!

Wednesday was a shorter day, but he got to be there the whole day as his therapy wasn't until after school. He rode the bus home for the first time! I think he enjoyed getting do that! He started giving me some pushback on having to go to therapy and not getting a break after school. I had to explain to him that even though he is well enough to not need every therapy everyday, he still needs therapy a few times a week. He then complained to me about missing a lesson in social studies ("the most fun of the subjects to study!!"). I told him I am trying to not have to take him out of school too early too often so he doesn't miss much, which means having something after school everyday! Makes for a crazy week. It won't be forever. 

Alistair has been tired in the evenings. We caught a glimpse of grouchy Alistair Monday  and Wednesday nights, something we have not seen since probably June! He has been more and more active in his steps. This weekend he did a lot of walking. Saturday he went with Grandma and Grandpa and Gillian to Seattle. They went to the Seattle Team Store and then down to the Museum of Flight. We met them for dinner afterward and took the kids home. Sunday we joined our friends who invited us to the Boeing Friends and Family Day at the Renton 737 plant. He walked over 10,000 steps and over 4 miles that day! Needless to say he was exhausted!

Alistair is doing great and hanging in there with everything. It will be interesting as we settle into our new routines and schedule how he handles it. We have a therapy every day of the week except Sunday. He will also have therapy during the day at school. My main goal was to maximize his time at school as I think it will be important for him to be able to participate as much as possible to keep up and not fall behind. Plus it just helps to continue to add to his stamina and keep his mind active. Rest is also helpful for helping his brain heal and his sleeping is getting better. The wakings are beginning to subside a bit, but we still go in a few times every night. We are getting there!

Life Got Busy

In keeping up with recent news, nurses are awesome and deserve every shred of grattitude you can give them! This has become even more evident as we have returned home and taken over full care and management of Alistair, his medications and his therapies. The weekend was great. We relaxed, we played, we did some normal every day things like Costco and grocery shopping, we cooked good food and ate well and we saw friends and family in a relaxed environment with comfortable seating and space! Then the week started and we all hit the ground running!

This week has been all about getting Alistair established with his new therapists as well getting used to new schedules and just life in general outside of the hospital. We had back to back speech and OT therapy sessions on Monday. Tuesday we went and visited Alistair's classroom and friends at school as well as saw some of his former teachers and the office staff. Wednesday he went and saw Brian, his Physical Therapist, and worked with him for an hour. Thursday he had a check-up with his pediatrician and Friday had another PT session. Monday he has a check-up with his cardiologist. Starting next week he will begin a regular schedule of Speech on Monday, OT on Tues and Thurs, PT on Wed and Sat. He will eventually also receive these services at school. In amongst all of this will be Gillian wth Gymnastics and Girl Scouts and me fitting in PTA duties as I can. Phew!

Alistair is doing great being home. He has really taken the initiative to be independent. He tries to do things on his own before we help him. He pretty much does the stairs on his own, usually needing some help on the last one or two. He is still having some issues sleeping soundly all night. We are still getting up with him 2-4 times a night. He seems less anxious about sleeping at home and being in his quiet and dark room. It is more about being able to pull up covers when he kicks them off, getting over on his side (especially on the side with his cast he wears at night) or occasionally being disoriented after having a vivid dream. He is eating well, especially since he is no longer having to eat hospital food. He isn't eating a lot. I think he gets frustrated with not being able to stab or scoop his food well and finds it easier to stop eating than to keep going. He says that's not the case, but I am not so sure. That being said, he doesn't ask for snacks or complains about being hungry between meals. Perhaps his appetitie is smaller now, which isn't a bad thing! I am sure as he gets more active he will be more hungry. 

Since Gillian is getting up and getting ready to go to school in the morning, we all do. Alistair is keeping the same schedule as her as far as having breakfast and being dressed and ready to go to the bus since he will be doing this soon. He has been walking down to the bus and back every morning and again in the afternoon when we have been here. His pace is beginning to increase a bit, which is nice. Walking with Alistair makes me think of walking down the aisle as a bridesmaid and trying in vain to step in time to the S-L-O-W beat! I try to think about Water Music when we walk to help me walk slower and not rush him! His Fitbit has been great for him, I think he really likes being able to see how far he has walked every day and how many steps he is taking. His biggest day so far was Monday with ~8600 steps and 2.87 miles! He fell asleep early that night!

School will begin for him on Monday. When we were there Tuesday, I briefly met with Mr. Wellington and the school psychologist about getting Alistair back and what we need to do as far as acoomodations/policies/procedures. We have a meeting with the whole team Monday morning to start the ball rolling to set-up an IEP. He will return to school on a 504 to bridge the gap until the IEP is in place and that will provide him with the services he needs in the meantime. I think once he is in school, more stuff will start to fall into place for Alistair. 

People keep asking me and Seth how we are doing. I think we are doing well, considering everything going on. We are tired, sleep is not exactly sound. We are busy, which is normal for us, but it is harder having to consider Alistair's needs and plan for medicine timing and just getting around in general. We both felt down or blah on Monday and in talking about it later came to the conclusion that being home is great but it is hard and sad. Being at the hospital was extremely positive because he arrived in the state he did and just improved and got better every day. They didn't know him before, there was no history to which to compare. But at home, as happy as we are about the continued improvements, it is hard to see him struggle with things we know he could do at the end of June before we left for Minnesota. And of course there are constant reminders all over the house in the form of photos showing Alistair doing things just fine or providing a memory of some activity we did in the past that might be difficult to do right now. 

After my last post, many people made comments regarding the end of the blog! Not so! I intend to continue to do blog posts, they just may not be as frequent. The title of this particular post is extremely apt! And because it was so busy, there were no photos snapped! 

Home For Good!

The past few days have been busy! Alistair had a couple of long days of therapy to pack in as much as they could before he left. Thursday morning, Seth and I had a very long meeting with the speech therapist, teacher and psychologist regarding school and the accommodations he will need once he returns. For a while he is going to need to have an academic assistant to stay with him all day. This person will be able to help him in the class by scribing for him, helping him grab the things he needs as far a papers, binders, etc and helping him with books (holding, turning pages). They will accompany him around school to make sure he is safe from falling. They will also help him in the bathroom with pulling up pants and other needs if required in there. Pretty much this person will be an extra set of hands for him until his own work better! Alistair won't be returning to school for another week, but we plan to make a few social visits next week. When he does return to school, it will be in an abbreviated way and we will work up to full days as he tolerates it. 

He got to go to class and conduct a science experiment with the rest of the students. He had a lot of fun and did really well in a class setting. I guess he told Scott, the teacher, that he was excited about being in the classroom with the other kids because he felt like he needed to practice before he goes back to his school! In the afternoon we had our last family conference. It was short and sweet and we got a strong feeling that everyone loves Alistair and is really sad, but very happy, to see him leave. They are going to miss him, for sure! Alistair finished out his day with an hour in the pool! He had so much fun and did really well. He was swimming with a kick board and wanted to practice his side breathing. Then he decided he wanted to dive for rings. He really enjoyed himself. He has been prescribed PT 2-3 times a week, so we have decided he will do twice a week with his PT, Brian, and once a week at the pool at Children's. It will be good to mix it up and it is a different kind of workout, which will be good for him!

The rest of Thursday included another therapy dog visit (top of the list!) and his teacher, Mrs. Harper, came to visit. She brought with her 3 posters, all signed by the 4th grade classes. So cool to see and Alistair enjoyed seeing them! He sent with her a letter he wrote to his class about his summer and what to expect when he gets back. She is going to read it to the class and then we are going to visit his class on Tuesday. Not sure what our visit will entail, but Alistair is interested in possibly doing a slide show and maybe showing off his scar! We will see! 

 Friday was the big day! He and Seth were up before 6 in anticipation! One of the last things on his "Flight Plan" to accomplish was "Pooping on Tim's Floor." It was a joke that started the first week we were at the hospital and turned into a a checklist item to do on the day he left (which required repeated explanation to doctors, nurses, visitors, etc. after seeing it listed on the door). Our friends Tim and Jason work in administration at Children's and the plan was to leave some fake poop in Tim's office with Jason's help to get in and do the deed. So they did it and then Tim and Jason sent a series of photos leading up to the discovery. Alistair was totally entertained by all of this and it was very cool of Tim and Jason to participate! Thanks Guys! 

Alistair had a full day of therapies, all crammed into the morning so he could leave by noon. Most of his therapies involved wrapping up loose ends and finishing testing so all the information could be sent to his outpatient therapists to continue his care. Our rental wheelchair (which we most likely won't need much) and his shower chair showed up before noon, which was awesome because a lot of times waiting for equipment holds up the discharge process. We had a lot of people come to say goodbye to Alistair (and us!). They are truly going to miss him. True to Alistair's nature, he charmed everyone he encountered at the hospital and they are sad, but happy, to see him leave! Of course we will visit when we are around because after spending almost two months with them, they want to see us again! 

 

We executed the "Plan for Today" and headed home via a stop at Kidd Valley for lunch. Once home, Alistair got in a little video game playing before we headed down the street to get Gillian from the bus stop. He walked all the way down and back and did a great job. Gillian got off the bus and ran over to hug Alistair, we didn't tell her he would be there! Then the other kids got off the bus and a majority of them came over to him, said Hi and hugged him! It was very sweet and totally unprompted by any parent! Just another example of why we love where we live!

Though we still have a way to go on this journey, we are really glad to be able to continue it at home. We would like to thank everyone at Children's for the last 46 days. The Rehab Nurses and staff are wonderful and took such care of Alistair. The doctors and therapists are one of a kind and really made our experience positive. But there is no place like home and seeing this place in the rear view mirror, knowing our next visits will be just a few hours at a time, took a huge weight off our shoulders. I think doing this twice now is more than plenty! 

Senioritis

2 more nights sleeping in this hospital. We are so looking forward to not sleeping in the hospital any longer. I feel myself wanting to rush through the day so it will be over and feeling annoyed about having to eat at the cafeteria again. We just have to get through Friday midday and then we are free, as Alistair would say!

Monday Alistair had his half day of therapies and then he and Seth came home. We ended up staying around the house for quite a while, playing video games, and then headed out to run some errands. We got home with groceries for dinner, put a kibosh on video games and sent the kids upstairs to play. Well lo and behold they found something to do with Legos together and then Gillian helped Alistair look at a Lego book. Truth be told, the video game playing has been very good for Alistair's arm and hand. It is beginning to bend easier and his hand function is starting to come back...I just hate having the video games on all the time! We had a nice BBQ'd dinner and cleaned up. Then Seth and Alistair headed back to the hospital.

Tuesday, Alistair had a fairly productive day. He decided in PT to try working with his lacrosse stick a little bit and did some stretching. Seth said he looked pretty good!  In OT he worked on a lot of fine motor skills with writing/drawing and picking up small stuff. He decided he wanted to go to the classroom for school and once there decided he wanted to join the other students in the hospital on Thursday for the first day of school at Children's. He is going to participate in the Science lesson! He also had a Recreation Therapy outing to Archie Mcphee. His one list item he has not completed yet while in rehab involves fake poop. I never really had a high opinion of Archie Mcphee before (AKA The Crap Store), but somehow my opinion dropped even more! Upon entering the store Alistair asked the clerk where the fake poop was. Quite indignantly the clerk said, "we don't sell fake poop here, we never have!" Oh, sorry, I didn't realize the fake eyeball laying in a pool of blood or the girl squirrel underpants (undies for a squirrel) was classier than fake poop. Whatever, we found something with which to improvise.

Alistair had a long day yesterday with his schedule and therapies. We recently bought him a Fitbit Charge to motivate him to walk and move more and hopefully build up strength and stamina. Yesterday was his best day to date. He walked down to almost the cafeteria and back, down to Starbucks and back by the entrance and walked his entire outing, not to mention to all his therapies. Then after dinner he and I took a walk up to the rooftop garden. He was tired last night and then also today...partly due to his busy day yesterday and partly due to his not sleeping great last night.

Today we had a bit of a quieter day, but it was peppered with a few exciting things! First this morning he had his swallow study with hopes of passing on to regular liquids and not having to thicken anything anymore. It was scheduled for an hour, 10 minutes into it after more or less chugging two cups of liquid with no issues, she was convinced that he passed with flying colors! He can drink whatever he wants! Yee-haw! He came back and told everyone on the floor who would listen! They were so excited for him. Because he can do regular liquids now and because his incision has healed, he was cleared to go to the pool. He is super excited for PT tomorrow as it will be 1 hour in the pool!! We also worked on transferring into the Pilot today. He did great with a foot stool and seemed pretty happy about being in one of our cars. Nana and Papa were nice enough to let us use their car for a while, but I think he enjoyed sitting in HIS seat! Tomorrow or Friday we will work on transferring into the Durango now that we have running boards on it. He is really looking forward to sitting in his seat in the new car! Although if he is anything like Gillian, the novelty of sitting in the third row easily will trump the captains chair real fast!

Heading to the nurses station to spread the good news!

                                      Cheers to regular liquids!                                        

Alistair had another canine visitor today, Allie. We have seen her before. She is a sweet golden and much like all the other dogs who visit Alistair, find his room to be quite comfy and cozy! I think he will be visited by one, maybe two more dogs before he leaves. He sure loves having the therapy dogs and gets disappointed when he misses them...more than missing athletes!!

Tomorrow in addition to his usual therapies, we start having our wrap-up meetings to go over discharge info for everything from equipment to meds to outpatient therapies to our next appointment here to stretches to school and everything in between! Lots of info, but because we are here everyday, we have lots of experience doing and seeing everything and that makes our teaching times shorter! We will have a lot of work to do ourselves once at home and I am sure his outpatient therapists will have their own list of stretches and other homework they will want us to do. I am almost overwhelmed with all the running around to various appointments and home workouts we will have to do. Keeping track of where I am when will be very important. I just keep focusing on the fact that we will all be starting from under the same roof and we will be eating all of our meals together again. The rest of it will fall into place.

While settling into bed, Alistair hit me with a major teary-eyed statement...I wish you guys could feel the pain I feel. Oh boy, what a loaded statement. It is true, we don't know the pain he is feeling - physically or emotionally. I told him that's true but if we could, we would take it all on for him in a heartbeat. When he says stuff like that or he struggles with something simple like stabbing a bite of food or complains about his arm not doing what it should be doing, I get sad and super pissed. Every once in a while the angry feelings rear their ugly head and I think about the "no fairs" and the "why hims." It makes me really sad to look at photos of Alistair, especially the ones so close to his surgery. I just look at him and think, "if we only knew what would happen." The ones that really get me are the ones we took morning of when we were on our way to check in and get ready. Huge feelings of guilt bubble up, I can barely look at those photos. I am glad he can't feel the pain that we feel. I hate that he has to have this struggle and that we can't do anything to make it instantly better. It will get better and it has gotten better way faster than anyone had hoped or believed. That is good and I have faith that this will all be behind us soon.     

A Little Taste of Home

Friday was a pretty typical day around Rehab. We had our usual therapies with a walking trip down to Starbucks on the third floor and a card game thrown in by Recreation Therapy. Alistair is getting better and better in his walking; very stable and balanced. Grandma came midday to stay with Alistair overnight while we went home to get the house ready for him to come home for the night! We spent the evening working on installing banisters on the other side of our stairs so Alistair had lots of support to go up and down. My brother came over and he and Seth ran to Home Depot and then came home and worked. We took a break for dinner and to watch a bit of the UW game and then finished up! They definitely came in handy over the weekend, so it was good we got them in! Thanks! Jeff!!

Saturday morning we arrived an hour before he was to be done with therapies so we could maximize the time we could take him home. They had decided to run an EKG on him as his pulse has been a bit higher the past few days. The EKG was done right after PT and then we had to wait around to find out the information. An hour later, the rehab attending finally went and tracked down the cardiology attending to find out the results. They said they would also like to get an echo, but could wait to do it until we got back as they didn't want to intrude on our overnight pass any longer. We were just sent with the instructions to not be super active (easy) and keep an eye out for symptoms associated with a racing pulse. We had no issues over the weekend. They were planning to do all this stuff this week before his discharge anyway, so we will get the echo done and go from there sometime this week.

We headed home via stopping to pick-up lunch from Ranch Drive-In! Yum! Alistair got around the house wonderfully! He walked around, sat down on furniture and even got on the floor with little to no assistance. The real work was navigating the stairs and of course we were right there to help him up and down. He enjoyed being able to get to his room. He spent much of his time home playing his new racing game. Jeff brought a steering wheel with foot pedals and it proved to be quite successful to use for Alistair. We had also brought home the adapted Xbox remote, which he played Minecraft on with his buddy Logan who came to visit. 

Making pizza!

We had lots of visitors Saturday and Sunday. Many neighbors popped by to say Hi, a few family members came by for a visit and a few of Alistair's friends came to hangout with him. We also went for a walk around the short block in our neighborhood via the park. It took him quite a while to do it with lots of rests along the way. When he is home, we will be walking a lot to build up that stamina. He will have lots of outpatient therapies as well, but we will also work on stuff here!

Gillian seemed to really enjoy having Alistair home. She was wherever he was and did anything for him when he needed help. He would call for help with something downstairs and before we could answer, she would say, "coming!" and run down to see what he needed. They had wanted to have a slumber party in his room with her sleeping on the top bunk. We thought it might not be a restful night for her as we suspected he may not sleep great and didn't want to disturb her. She was a little disappointed, but I think she understood, especially when we told her the next morning how much he was up! Alistair slept similarly to how he does at the hospital, about every two hours he wakes and needs something. But this time it was also too dark and quiet for him. After 2 1/2 months of sleeping in a hospital, I totally get it and was prepared for him to feel that way. Luckily we have a night light available in his room and we used it. We also have an Alistair Monitor (not baby!) still and had it on. It has worked for almost 10 years now and Saturday night is when it decided to not anymore. Alistair came wandering into our room about 3 hours after he went to bed and was mad at us for not coming when he called and called. We felt bad but at the same time were totally excited he got himself out of bed and walked down to our room all by himself. That was lost on him at that moment (but he did mention it later and thought it was cool!). So the rest of the night we had our doors cracked and heard him when he called. Thankfully Halie has a monitor she was just going to get rid of that still works...so we will have a different Alistair monitor when he comes home!

Seth took Alistair back to the hospital last evening, he had to be back by 8pm. It's pretty quite in the unit right now, only 5 patients! I guess they really missed having Alistair around! Today is a short day, they treat holidays like Saturdays. So has half the therapies and then we are going out. Not sure the plan for the day, but no need to sit around the hospital if we don't have to! 

Having Alistair around for 20 hours was wonderful. It felt normal and comfortable and nice to all be under one roof. There is definitely more work involved with having him move around the house, but that will get easier as he gets stronger. We also have to remember he gets tired easier and have to plan the things we do around giving him time to rest. We will have to ease back into our crazy weekends slowly as we aren't great at doing nothing! This hospital stay journey is about to end. 63 days inpatient. A whole new journey is about to start, but at least we will all be under one roof and in the comforts of our home, neighborhood and city! Seattle Children's has been great, truly, and we are grateful we have this extraordinary institution in our backyard. But it time to go home!

Movin' and Shakin'

Alistair's nurse last night told Seth she had never seen anyone progress as quickly as Alistair has. He takes a skill and runs with it. Anything he has begun to do, he looks like he has been doing for weeks in a matter of days! This kid is motivated and I also think he just knows what he needs to do and does it because it beats sitting around! Today we started working on stairs and he did great. We went into the stairwell and the PT gave him some instructions and away they went. There were 11 stairs. He went up and down them 3 times. He was tired after the 3rd time, but he looked good! He is getting an overnight pass this weekend. We will bring him home after therapies on Saturday and not come back until Sunday evening. Our house has lots of stairs, so it is definitely a necessity for him to work on them now. We will need to make sure to accompany him up and down them, but the fact that he can climb them at all is awesome! My brother is coming over tomorrow to help Seth install a handrail along the other side of both sets of stairs so Alistair has options to go up and down. 

 Alistair had some very special visitors today. His preschool teachers Mrs. Bowers and Mrs. O came to see him. They brought him a very special handmade story quilt as well as some donuts from Countryside Donuts (YUM!) and a coffee card for the parents (Thank You!!). They visited for quite a long time and we had a nice conversation. They are always so wonderful to talk to and spend time with and I know Alistair enjoyed having them come! The nurses were all so surprised that his PRESCHOOL teachers came (that was like, 5 years ago!!) and thought it was cool! 

Alistair also had a canine visitor, Hank. He has been here before. Alistair is on the top priority list for therapy dogs. I think we have seen all but one of the dogs, multiple times. He loves it! 

The rehab unit has become quite empty as of late. Alistair's buddy Monte discharged a few weeks ago. Then yesterday Alex and Daniel discharged, as well an older kid who turned out to be a lacrosse player from Woodinville! Alistair was a little bummed that Daniel was leaving. But yesterday, in typical Alistair fashion, he was telling Daniel goodbye and gave him all kinds of inspiring words of encouragement for the remainder of his healing. We exchanged contact information - mostly to get Xbox handles for online gaming. Monte came to visit yesterday to tell Daniel goodbye too. The 3 boys posed for a photo and it was so cool to see Monte AND Alistair standing next to Daniel instead of Monte standing between 2 kids in wheelchairs like last time!

Brian, one of the Recreational Therapists, came and got Alistair during his downtime to see if he wanted to play video games. He brought out an adapted Xbox controller that is larger and easier for someone with gripping issues to use. So they went and hung out in the day room playing video games until lunch! Brian was helping Alistair with the regular controller and then switching to the larger one to give him a break. Seth and Alistair played again later too. I am surprised we didn't tonight, but we did watch the M's win and some of the Seahawks game!

In the midst of everything else, Gillian started 1st grade. She had a great first day of school, loves her teacher and has one of her best buddies as well as neighbor, Kate, in her class. Gillian is amazing. Amid all that has occurred this summer and her being shifted to here there and everywhere and not getting to spend as much time with us as she should, her resiliency is unwavered. She has maintained such a happy and positive demeanor. Her love for her brother is very obvious in her genuine concern for his well-being as well as her excitement about the things he has done. She was so happy when I told her he walked the other day. Seth told her tonight he is coming home for the night this weekend and she was super excited. She is this bright, shiny sprite who continues to be happy and keeps us smiling. 

Things are looking up all over. Alistair has a discharge date of September 11th, one week from tomorrow. If it holds, we will have been in the hospital a total of 63 days...17 days at Mayo and 46 days at Children's. The crazy thing is that the days at Mayo seemed much longer than the days at Children's. Once he is home, he will be going to lots of outpatient therapies to continue to work on everything. He still has a long road ahead of him to get back to square one. But being able to be home and operate in "normal" life will only allow for his progress to continue to move in a steep upward trajectory. As mentioned up above, Alistair will be coming home this weekend for an overnight pass and trial run for the following week. We don't have much in the way of plans other than to enjoy being home and probably playing some video games. Give us a call or email if you want to drop by!