Home again, home again (Home again!)

We are home. Again! Hi!

How are you all? Enjoying the beautiful weather, I hope, if you have some. We do.

It's lovely getting discharged in 70 degree sunny weather in April.

I won't be able to share all the gory details about AwesomeCloud's latest hospital adventure. For one thing, my brain is so dead it wouldn't be able to organize all those details into a coherent narrative. For another, I'm too tired to type for an hour, and the house looks like it's had three unsupervised cats in it for four days straight, and fourth of all, I'm way behind on work. Like, so far behind my boss must be having heart palpitations.

Nobody planned for this infection. In fact, we all planned to be home this whole time, and you can tell just by looking around. Take the fridge, for instance. Is that a fridge that has been carefully emptied of perishables and leftovers in anticipation of an extended absence? Why, no, it isn't.

I spent the morning on a grand hunt for liquid oxycodone. Apparently not too many drugstores carry it. We finally found one, and the pharmacists were delightful. I may even want to go back there and give them more of my business. It's a privately owned pharmacy, the only one within miles as far as I know.

Other than that, AwesomeCloud has been getting reacquainted with his toys and his favorite foods, and I'm still muddle-headed. I feel distanced from my life. And not in the way I feel after a week on vacation. This is a deeper distancing than that. I'm dragging my feet a little and not trying real hard to jump back into life as usual. I don't know why I'm reluctant to feel normal again.

Maybe I'm grieving.

However, AwesomeCloud's ordeal wasn't as bad as it could have been. Once the infection clears, that will be the end. He will officially be a non-special-needs kid in every way.

And, OMG, he grew up quite a bit in the past few weeks! It seems like he went into the hospital as a baby and came out a kid. He understands more language, his memory is better, and he can navigate places he's only been to a couple of times before. He's more sure of himself and his wants and don't-wants. He clings to me like a piece of cathair, but he doesn't go along with all my decisions anymore like he used to.

He lost two pounds. Two of his precious, hard-earned pounds. Well, with all of these wacky diets he's been on, I'm not surprised. High-fiber, no-fiber, clear liquid, IV diet, soft foods, liquids-no-apple-juice, the IV diet again, the constipation diet, the diarrhea diet.... gah! He resembles a stick figure again - big round head, sticklike body and limbs. But this time he's a lot taller.

He has also decided to eschew both bottles and sippy cups. This would be a good thing, except that he's humorously bad at drinking out of a regular cup. Seriously, humorously bad. I crack up every time he tries. That's how bad he is.

I'm trying to teach him to do it right, because he has to drink. Meanwhile I'm feeding him the wateriest foods he'll eat. And I made him walk around in the sun today to get him to work up a thirst.

Okay, I didn't make him. There was nothing else to do while we waited for the oxycodone. This pharmacy doesn't sell toys like CVS does. Not that I would have bought him one if it did. He can play with a bunch of dumb old toys anytime. Running up and down the handicapped ramp is much more enriching. As is chasing a tufted titmouse from tree to tree while imitating its mating call.