Freedom!!!

As of about 12:30 Saturday afternoon we were no longer property of the hospital. Woohoo! The IV came out early on, we had PT, did pin care (which should really be renamed, torture), played "Cars" on the Wii with another 3 year old boy in the hospital play room and then ventured to the cafeteria to pick out a yummy meal.
Over the course of leaving the hospital today and arriving with Jeffrey back to Hackerman-Patz we heard  stories of such strength from 2 other families. We thought we had it hard. One woman told us her son had 2 heart attacks at the age of 3 months and this slowed his growth. Things didn't go well with another one of his surgeries and he was on life support. He's had multiple surgeries and now he's in a soft cast. He was a cutie. We also met a 15 year old girl and her mom. At birth, this girl's one foot was at the level of her other knee. She has been stretched 22 cm. By looking at her today you would never know. This is her third surgery and she has her last fixator on. She's had a super hip surgery, a spica cast (full-body cast), and fixators. She was soo great. She ate lunch next to us at the house and then offered to play ping-pong with Jeffrey. Well, if you know anything about Jeffrey he loves sports so he was bascially like, bring on the pong! They must've played together wheelchair vs. wheelchair for like an hour. Surprise, the people watching were impressed with Jeffrey's ability. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but the kid has some mad skills :)

We also met a cutie-patooti, Madeline. She is also 3 and can't be kept down :) Her surgery was 4 weeks ago. She is walking, yes walking, with her fixator all over the house. She and Jeffrey have colored, shared peas and a juice box together. For some reason he keeps calling her Anaya. When we walk past her door, he asks for her. When we leave the room he says, "I wonder if Madeline (aka Anaya) is out." They plan to be here until the middle of August, like us.
Thanks to Madeline, Jeffrey, on the day of hospital discharge, got out of his wheelchair to sit with her. Then he wanted to get on the floor and play trucks. Jamie and I exchanged a puzzled "uh...should we do this? Is it okay" look.  We figured if he wanted to that we should try to help.
Do you think he was fine? Of course he was. He was using his hand to lift and move the fixator. Again, we were slightly freaked out by that. He even attempted to stand on his own, perhaps forgetting he even had one on.

Dumping with Dad

After dinner, we ended the night with a little PT. Happy Birthday, daddy!!

It's now 1:30 a.m. Monday morning. My alarm woke me up. (It's the every-four-hours-pain-meds alarm.) I figured, why not catch up on my update? I'm only 2 days behind! Sorry to keep you hanging. This morning at 8:00 is our first official outpatient PT. That should be interesting. Let someone else torture Jeffrey for a change. I think it's also his first official turning day too. Turning day? you may wonder. Well, that's what we'll be doing 4 times a day. We have an allen wrench that we insert into one of the pieces of hardware on his leg and we crank out a quarter turn 4x daily. That will space out the broken femur and give us the eventual length. It's amazing what they can do.
So, I'm gonna add some pics and go back to sleep.