The first night home wasn't bad. It felt good to sleep in my own bed. But now I had to find some sort of new routine. Wake up, drop Mason off to school, drive to St. Pete, stay for a little while with Noah, pick up Mason, and go home. At first, we would drive back in the evenings but it became too much. Not to mention that driving 42 miles each way twice a day was also rather costly in the gas department.
For 21 days this was my life. I probably should be grateful. There wasn't anything actually wrong with Noah. He was just a preemie. I guess to me it made it worse because there wasn't anything wrong and he still couldn't come home. I remember driving every morning to go see him. In the beginning it was so exciting. At first I would just be able to stare at him. Gradually we were allowed to do more. Then it would be time to leave and I would cry the whole drive home. I felt so guilty, like I was abandoning him.
A couple of times he would stop breathing while he was sleeping. It would only be for a couple of seconds and he would self correct but this is what kept him from coming home. He had to go 5 days without this happening. We would schedule a discharge date and on day 4 he would have and issue. This is when the drive there would become less exciting. Not because I didn't want to see him but because of worry. Once I was there I would be fine no matter what happened. But then it would be time to leave and the cycle would just continue.
Midway through all this I started to become very depressed. Everything was happening all at once. I had Noah and he wasn't coming home, was out of work 6 weeks earlier then planned and on top of that, being laid off at the end of the year, Mason was acting up in school, finances weren't great, and it was right before Christmas. Nervous breakdowns were not uncommon in my house. I wanted so bad for it to be over.
Noah was scheduled to be discharged on Dec. 3rd. It was a Monday. He had passed all his tests and was good to go. On Sunday when we were leaving to come home, we were so excited. That night I prayed. We drive there on Monday morning.The excitement was overwhelming. We get there only to find out the he had an episode early that morning. I wanted to die. He just received an extra 5 days. After that we stopped counting days. We stopped planning. Then it happened. Day 1, no issues. Day 2, no issues. Day 3 & 4, no issues. On day 5 I would know before we got there if Noah had any issues. If Abdul was gone in the a.m. it meant that Noah had issues. If he was home it meant we were good to go. He was going to call in the morning to find out how Noah did.
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