Home Again

As we were getting ready to be discharged Tuesday morning, January 6th, our cardiologist came in to our room one last time to listen to Owen. After walking in and seeing our room packed and us itching to go, he joked "this has been a pretty long 5 days". We came in on December 11th under the impression that we would be home in 3-5 days and now we were on our way home after 27 days in the hospital. 

Owen dressed and ready to go home

Owen was excited to be home, as were we. 

Owen's custom flag from Great Uncle Jay

We continue to work on condensing his feeds to the point where he will not be hooked up to the feeding much throughout the day and give him the opportunity to start eating food by mouth. He has been catching up on alot of sleep after being in the hospital and being bothered every couple of hours. We will continue to have a number of doctor's appointments between the pediatrician, cardiology, the surgical team, amoung other specialist, but the hope is that the hospital will not be in our future for a long time. 

Owen won't ever be fixed, so the journey won't ever end, but with this last hurdle, we hope that we can start moving toward a little more normal childhood with time spent at home growing and playing. 

Owen reunited with his cousins and aunts

It's surreal to look back at these past six months and to think of all that has happened. The twists and turns are almost hard to comprehend. We can't thank all the people that have supported us through this enough. I don't know how we would have gotten through this without the overwhelming support that we have received. Our parents and family have kept us going with constant support and assistance. They were routinely at the hospital spoiling Owen, bringing us food, letting us get away for a little bit, and making sure that we took care of ourselves. We received such overwhelming support from the fundraisers from so many people. It is hard to comprehend the generosity that so many people showed to us. We thank you all again from the bottom of our hearts.  We received a couple of gifts upon our return home from Great Grandma Fagel, Great Aunt Renee and Uncle Dan, Great Aunt Mary Ellen and Uncle Dick, the Allen's, and the Morris family. While we were in the CICU, our room had a view of the Cincinnati Zoo and we could see the Festival of Lights at night. We were anxious for the time when we could take Owen to the zoo. A few days after we left the hospital, we received an email saying that Maggie Wuellner, Molly Messenio, Sarah Orebaugh, Jessica White, Lee Cassiere, and Lindsay Dressman had given us a membership to the zoo. We also received an amazing a sentinmental gift from Michelle's sisters that was this blog converted into a book. It is something that Owen can have forever to look back at the warrior effort he put up and all the people that cared about him. Thank you all again for following along these past 6 months. We will try and keep everyone updated on Owen's progress. We probably won't update the blog as frequently in hopes that there is nothing major to report and we are busy playing, laughing and smiling with our little warrior.