It's like a little Christmas miracle

Erik is home, with a drain, and feeling better than he has felt since the transplant.  

In the spirit of the holiday season I will try to limit my ranting today…but seriously he should have had a drain in the first place, and certainly should have had one, oh I don't know, sometime over the last 3 weeks when they were all so shocked at the level of pain and discomfort he was still experiencing.  Seriously, a drain.  Like the miracle cure.  He is walking fine and feels fine and is basically where he should have been in terms of recovery a few weeks ago.

As I was spending my days reading people magazine and feeling sorry for myself after the transplant I would take breaks for people watching and conversation eavesdropping.  It's not my fault if people don't know how to use inside voices.  I heard people talking about the price of the parking garage, the extra financial burden of the gas it was taking to drive to Cleveland every day, gross hospital coffee, expensive hospital restaurant food, time off work etc. etc. etc.  The kids and I were going to make gift bags with parking vouchers and Au Bon Pain (it's in the hospital!) gift cards for the families in the transplant unit and then life, and fluid retention with projectile vomiting, got in the way.  The whole process wasn't quite as festive and all family inclusive as I had planned, but today Jack and I delivered …to quote Jack… a crap ton of gift cards to the transplant floor.  I couldn't pull it together to make individual gift bags but we asked the nurses station to please give a gift card to each family, and to keep handing them out as new families arrived this week.

When I bought the gift cards they were having some deal where they gave you coupon vouchers for every specific amount you spent on a gift cards.  I felt like Phoebe on friends when she just wanted to do a random act of kindness and kept benefitting.  Soooo we used the vouchers to buy all sorts of pastries and treats for the nurses station.  We did a good deed, we taught Jack a fabulous life lesson, and we kept a few pastries for the drive home.  I'll call it a success.

I'm not one to do things half way so we plan to do this in a more organized and thought out fashion next year.  We would like to be able to deliver gift bags to all of the families in the transplant unit AND the families of the donors…parking vouchers, food gift cards and Starbucks gift cards.  I feel fundraisers and a non profit organization in my future.   I mean really, after Erik recovers what am I going to do with my time?  And because I can't let it go …. I'm thinking each gift bag needs a little "all of the crap that will freak you out when you get home with this transplant patient that they don't tell you before discharging you" guide.  I'm kind of shocked they just really don't have anything like that.  These people who are sent home to really be twenty four hour home health care providers need an advocate and I can't really keep my mouth shut so it sounds like a beautiful partnership.  I'm on it.