We're home

Well, yesterday I spent 17 hours in the car by myself with the boys. Dad was doing so well after his surgery and was busy doing rehab, etc, so there wasn't much for me to do for him - I got to see him only 5 minutes on Friday. So I decided to come home. It was a multi-faceted decision. I couldn't do much there, the boys were not sleeping well, and Grant was begging to come home. Chris called me Friday morning and said he'd had the worst day of medicine ever (he had a baby come prematurely (22 weeks) and they couldn't do anything to help it survive, even though he was performing chest compressions, they just didn't have tools small enough to intubate the poor baby, so it died as he watched it gasp for breath) and he told me he just wanted me there to hold him. So when it was determined that I couldn't even hardly see my dad, I decided it was time to come home. Dad was taken out of ICU on Saturday morning and seems to be doing great. Today he walked around the unit 20 times, shaved, took a bath, ate all his meals sitting up and cut his pain meds in half. He seems to be progressing very quickly and the doctors are even considering sending him home tomorrow. We really had a wonderful miracle in our family this week. So I spent the day driving yesterday. It was only supposed to be a 13 hour trip but was stretched into a long 17 hour drive. The boys were so good. I was so impressed with them all day. I really didn't hear any whining or crying all day...until the last 4 hours of the trip. Mason had decided he was done and didn't want to be in the car any more. So I listened to screaming for 3 hours straight (minus the times when I had stopped and had taken him out of the carseat). I was never so glad for the kid to finally fall asleep. As soon as he fell asleep, I called my mom to let her listen to the silence with me and suddenly, there was a big thump on my windshield. I flinched and realized that whatever it was, was caught in my windshield wiper. Upon further inspection, I determined that it was a bat! A bat had flown into my windshield and gotten stuck in my wiper! It obviously did not survive the impact and it's wing was raised, waving to me in the wind. It was absolutely disgusting and I was never so glad for it to finally be freed from my wiper several minutes later! Yuck! We finally got home around 9:00 last night. Mason was so happy for his own bed, he slept the entire night! Grant did, too! Yippee! And I must say, I slept the best I have in a couple of weeks. So it's nice to be home with the understanding that my dad is on the mend. I was thinking about the upcoming holiday this month and have already determined what I am most thankful for right now...that I still have my dad around. It's amazing how much we take things for granted.