Running Away

Wednesday was a long day. About 9:00am we parked at the O'Quinn tower building where Tyler has his cardio rehab and then walked over to St. Luke's to put in a request to get a copy of Tyler's medical records. As we were walking back to the O'Quinn tower we ran into a couple of Tyler's doctors who were very impressed at how well Tyler was doing and again mentioned the August conference that they are hoping Tyler can attend. Then Tyler went to his physical therapy appointment. They asked Tyler to do his "warm-up" exercises and we explained that we had just done that by walking back and forth from this building to the hospital and back. They couldn't believe we had already done that much walking and Tyler once again mentioned how mean his "at-home" nurse was to him. After his therapy appointment and meeting with a nutritionist, Julia (nurse from CV ICU) picked us up to go have lunch with her and her partner. We had a great lunch with them and then went back to the hospital to pick up the medical records. It was now about 1:45 pm. Walking through the lobby I noticed Tyler was slowing down a bit and remembered we needed to get back to the apartment soon for his afternoon meds. I asked if he would be okay if I got him a wheel chair. It took about a split second for him to agree. We got the medical records and wheeled over to the Q'Quinn building again and got home. Tyler promptly took his meds and a nap.

Thursday the LVAD clinic called to cancel our Friday appointment due to weather. We didn't understand this at all since it would have been only our second clinic visit and the weather was just cold. The explanation was that they were still having clinic but were worried about people coming from far away. I think they looked at the records and thought we were traveling from Colorado. We pretty much demanded that we keep our appointment.

Friday we went to our appointment with Janet and David, who gave us a lift to the hospital. As we were waiting for Dr. Kar, we were preparing for a "medical records" fight. We were under the impression that information was not being exchanged with Colorado and we were still determined to leave by January 23rd. The doctor came in and commented on how well Tyler was progressing. Still had low INR levels but it was expected and they were going to adjust the Coumadin again. He asked how Tyler's parents were doing and told Tyler to be nice to me. Then he mentioned that he understood we were both "chomping at the bit" to get home. He told us that he had been in touch with the doctor in Colorado and since things looked good we were released to go home. What?! Tyler told Dr. Kar that he wanted to respect the weekly appointments for the first four weeks. Dr. Kar said that wasn't necessary and we could go ahead and go. I'm hoping my mouth wasn't open for to long and mentally I was already on the interstate headed home.

We discussed leaving with Janet and David. Tyler seemed to me to be hesitating and he was thinking about staying for one more clinic visit. He especially wanted to get in some more physical therapy. Janet and David mentioned that we might not want to take the chance of waiting and running into bad weather. Based on my reaction Tyler switched gears and figured we might as well leave the next day. I finally thought things through and had to many things to "deconstruct" in order to leave Houston...closing up our "winter" home and my company's "Houston office". I still can't believe I had to put in a forwarding order for our Houston address. We have decided to leave Monday morning, January 11th. We will take at least two days to drive back and have identified the heart centers along the way in Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Wichita. And yes, I promise not to drive like I'm in the movie Cannonball Run. Well, for the most part.

I think I'm still in shock that we can go home. Could this particular chapter really be coming to a close? Are we seriously going home after almost 10 weeks? Will we have separation anxiety? How fast can we run away? Tyler even started packing after we got home.

We have met some really great people in Houston that we will indeed miss. Houston may be the fourth largest city in the U.S., have some really crappy roads, and freaky when it comes to cold weather, but Houston also has some of the nicest people we've met. Very caring and supportive. From St. Lukes staff (nurses, doctors, social workers, admin staff, coordinators, rehab staff), other patients (especially Janet and David), the Wells Fargo banker, and neighbors at the apartments. The Houston community really has some wonderful people that helped us out tremendously. Hopefully we can visit them in August if the conference presentation of Tyler's case happens.

But right now.....RUN AWAY....RUN AWAY!

Robert