Back home, after 108 days

Kids were SO HAPPY to see mama back home. We are blessed to have family around to take care of the kids when we were in the hospital, but the reality is that a 7 year old and a 4 year old lived an exceptionally well behaved few months without their parents. Yes, they met us a few times in the hospital and they knew we’ll be back home soon, but I’m not sure if that made it easy or hard on them – knowing that we were just 30 mins away but took 108 days to cover that distance. Rashi was in tears of joy when she saw Rachana in the car when we picked her up from school. It was incredible to see so many emotions in a little girl. You could so clearly see the love, that she was unable to express in words. Shubh was excited too but a little more measured. He has the most questions about her health and you can see that he is not quite satisfied with our explanations. He does not understand why this is dragging on for so long and why they can’t just give a pill and get her healthy again. Some day, when they are old enough and can perhaps read this again, I hope they understand how lucky we feel to be together as a family. We are now, again, rushing in the mornings, pushing through the evening activities, nagging them to eat, seeing them sleep, managing the weekend activities and enjoying the simple pleasures of just being around.

Rachana was discharged from the hospital on Jan 18th. We came home in a fully stuffed car that included a wheelchair, walker and oxygen tanks. Rachana can walk with the walker and uses oxygen as needed, usually after a little exercise or exertion. Her health is stable but her feet do hurt which keeps her on pain medication.

The doctors have ordered a PET CT scan to understand if her clots are infected. This is scheduled 2 weeks from now and after that we’ll know the next steps. The vascular surgeons are also thinking that they can perhaps skip the invasive procedures to clear her clots as the size of the clots have reduced and perhaps the body could absorb them over time. The only reason to operate and remove the clots is to restore blood supply if the amputations are not healing with the current blood flow. The initial indications are that the left leg has good flow and could heal without any additional blood flow. The right might has lesser flow and that too they are thinking that they could give it a try and if the wound does not heal quickly enough, then attempt the procedure to clear the arteries in the right leg. All these decisions will probably happen after the PET CT scan. The glass half full view is – we’ll stay at home for about 2-3 weeks.