Day Five - Leaving Day!!!

Friday, March 29, 2013 - After a great day yesterday, good blood platelet level results and no pain issues, the nurse told us to prepare for discharge later today!  This is excellent news and Sarah has done amazing - Dr. Emani's '#1 Star Patient', as he says.  I am sure, and hope, he refers to all his kids that ways, as they deserve it, and so does Sarah.  Starting to get bags packed up and getting mentally prepared to walk out of the main entrance for the last time.  Sort of bitter sweet, which is weird.  Most people you would think would want to run out of here and not look back; but the level of service and care we have received makes it hard to just walk out.  And we will not.  We do not take for granted, one bit at all, the services we have been so lucky to receive.  I would not say Sarah will be running around school saying how lucky she was to get open-heart surgery, but, we know what this has done for her and her heart.  The people here are amazing and the fact they can go from 6-7 hours of open-heart surgery and 4 days later she is running up and down stairs, bouncing around the hospital, ready to leave, is crazy to me.

Nurse Marci stopped by to confirm all is looking good and pulls her 2 pacing wires.  This did hurt a bit, but mostly felt weird, but it is done.  Sarah perks up a bit once that is done.

Sarah posing with Nurse Marci.

After the pacing wires were pulled, Marci let us know we were gonna get out of here by 2-3pm!!  The nurse gets that discharge stuff in order for us to review and sign.  Sarah is eager to get out, but still not eating much, so we don't want that to keep us later.

By 2 pm all the paperwork is signed/reviewed and we get all our stuff from the hotel.  My mom and dad leave as they have to get their stuff packed to switch hotels (that's another story).  Surprisingly, Emily Singer stops by, a former patient and Boston Children's who had a heart transplant (Dr. Emani was one of the surgeons), to wish Sarah well and exchange stories.  She was very kind to stop by and made Sarah see that having a cool scar is not such a bad thing.  Thank you Emily for stopping by, that was very nice!

Sarah getting a bit restless and ready to go...

And we are outta here!  3 pm and we get our prescription from the in-house CVS and bring all the bags down to the main lobby.  

Sarah waiting in the lobby for Mom to get her pills!

We just decide to all walk to the parking garage, Sarah is up for a walk.  We escape through the giant revolving door one last time, take a quick look behind, and that is it...  We are free. Sarah has a new heart and is outside for the first time in 5 days.  The sun is shining, and the traffic is heavy, but we don't care.  We are going home...