A couple of days without an update has given us plenty of news to update you with! All good news of course, Judah is doing well, continuing his recovery and has even been able to stop another one of his medications. Judah had been on a medicine that required injections twice a day (daddy was giving them to him since he’s the more experienced with injections, being a diabetic), but he no longer needs that medicine and so no more shots! All of the medicines he receives now are oral, and most of them are just preventative meds that hopefully in time he won’t have to take anymore.
The big news is that we’ve finally found out what the next step for us and him will be. After 5 weeks and 1 day of being at Children’s Hospital, as of tomorrow, Wednesday October 17th we will be moving to a new facility, The Children’s Institute. The Children’s Institute is a pediatric rehabilitation facility, with one of the top feeding programs in the country, and it’s only a 5 minute drive from our house.
We took a tour of the facility today, and it certainly feels like a step closer to home. Judah will work closely with speech and other therapists to become an expert at feeding, while he has more time to grow and strengthen before we take him home. The program at the Children’s Institute is expected to last 2-4 weeks at a minimum, and longer as needed, depending on how well he does, so we could potentially finally be able to bring our baby home in a month or so.
As we move into the new facility and get the hang of it, we will update everyone on the changes and differences, but from what we’ve seen so far this will be an even more laid back facility, where monitoring will be at a minimum, so baby will not be strapped to his bed all day long and mommy and daddy will be able to take little J for walks, and he will finally be able to go outside. up to this point, he has spent his entire life in a hospital room, and never even gotten to smell the air outside or feel the sun on his face. This new facility will be the in-between from the hospital to our home, and just as there were a number of relaxed policies and additional freedoms coming from the ICU to the Recovery floor, we expect there will be even more with this next step to the rehabilitation center. Stay tuned for more details.
This is a big change, but a very welcome change. We have been in the hospital for far longer than we ever expected, but as we keep saying, the road to recovery is a long one, with plenty of twists and turns. We will take them all as they come, and appreciate as always your love and support through every curve. Judah is recovering, and now that he has just one more night in the hospital all the doctors and nurses are coming to say goodbye to him, and tell him how great he looks, and how strong he is.
J-N-J
