Saturday, 11/13

We awake to a ton of snow! The kids woke me up and Aidan was in full snow gear over his PJs. They were standing in my bathtub looking out the window in awe. They would say, "Look it's on the trees," and "Ooh do you see it on the slide?" The first snow is always a wonder.

We quickly got ready so we could go and see Kevin. I did not put the cars in the garage so we had some work to do before we left. The kids tried to help but it was snowing pretty hard and we were just a wet mess! I decided to start our short trek to the donut shop and then hospital even though the car wasn't exactly clear of snow. I couldn't see half of the time and frequently had to stop to clear the wet, heavy snow. We finally made it to the donut shop and the only thing Aidan wanted was donut holes and they only sell those in bags of 30! After much discussion we left with a couple of donuts for Alaina and Kevin and Aidan lugged the large bag of donut holes as I'm saying, "You know you are only going to eat a few of those right?"

We finally make it to see Kevin around 9 and the kids while nervous at first quickly got comfortable and were excited to see Kevin. I took each one on a little tour of the hospital and they were both impressed by the spinning vending machine and the coffee/hot cocoa vending machine. Nothing else was really all that impressive. We stayed for about an hour and then left. Kevin had a lot of pain in the night since he wasn't clicking in his sleep but other than that he was doing o.k.

We came home to lots of neighbor kids in the snow and we had fun playing too! My neighbors all helped out in some way today by snow plowing my driveway, shoveling, fixing my attic door, watching my kids, listening to me, giving advice, etc. You all know who you so thank you so much. I went to see Kevin while the kids were at Maggie and Devin's house and we had a quiet visit. Kevin seemed to be feeling the best that I've seen him since this all started. I stayed for about an hour and a half and then went home.

Later in the evening my friend and neighbor, Sonja, took the kids for dinner and swimming (God bless you!) and I got to stay with Kevin for the longest stretch yet. I had brought games and movies but we mostly talked which was nice. Two different times I tried to sit next to him on his bed and alarms sounded! We learned that he has an alarm on his bed so that he can't get up without help. Apparently somehow my joining him set that off.

There was again some confusion about next steps. Kevin told me the internist stopped by and said that they want to switch him from the dilaudid (now that is the clicker medicine, not sure when that changed or if I was mistaken that it was morphine before) to Oxycontin pills. They also want him to start walking some and that they wouldn't discharge him until he could walk the hallway. Kevin also said that we would have to go the pain clinic after he was discharged to find out about the epidural and this might occur on Monday and it might not. I was very confused and didn't see how this made any sense. We called in the nurse and she made some calls and now things make more sense. There is a MAPS pain clinic in St. Francis that is connected with the spine doctor's office. The plan would be get Kevin into a place where he can be discharged then he would go directly to MAPS and go from there.

We'll have to check in with that tomorrow, I guess. Sonja brought the kids to the hospital in their PJs and they got to say goodnight to Kevin. On the way home, Alaina said she was scared of Kevin because he's different but that she misses him too. Then Aidan started talking about dying and heaven. They are both at two different stages of understanding. I just hope I'm saying the right things...

Good night,
Sara