2 weeks

2 weeks. That’s all the time that I got to have Brendan home with me. It was the best time of my life. I have never wanted to have something as badly as I wanted Brendan home.

He was in the hospital for 82 days. I never went a day without seeing him. On those days when he was intubated and recovering from surgery and I couldn’t hold him, I would hold his hands, read to him, pray with him, talk to him, and sing to him. Daddy would sing to him as well. I would delight in the simple things like changing his diaper or giving him a bath. I remember getting mad at the nurses when they would change his diapers. That was the one thing that I could do that even slightly resembled being a mom. I wasn’t about to let someone take that away from me.

We brought him home on Friday, January 9, 2010. The hospital doesn’t like to do discharge over a weekend because they like to have staff available in case equipment doesn’t get delivered and for any other problems that could arise. However, Brendan was supposed to come home on that Thursday and there we just too many things going against us, so it got pushed back. The administrators knew that if I had to wait one more day I was going to go crazy.

That Friday was the best day ever, and also a terrifying day. I knew that Brendan was coming home on hospice care, and that essentially meant that he was coming home to die. Jeff and I knew that Brendan was going to pass no matter where he was, and it was just a matter of time before he did. So, we made the decision to bring him home where we could be a “normal” family for as long as we had.

Every day was a new adventure. Jeff took off from work Friday and we spent the weekend hanging out as a family. Our first outing was Saturday night. We walked to the Carl’s Jr. near our house. We got Brendan ready to go and had his pump (it was dinner time for him, too and we had his dinner in the stroller). I don’t think that Jeff and I had showered in a day because we were so exhausted from the night before. We were starving because we had no food in the house, and we were getting stir crazy from being in the house for over 24 hours. I remember asking some random guy there to take our picture. I am sure that he thought we were crazy, but I didn’t care. You can’t even see Brendan in the picture, but we knew he was there.

Brendan did great that night. He slept most of the time we were walking and just chilled while Jeff and I hung out. I remember looking at him every few seconds just to make sure he was still there. I couldn’t believe that he was home and that I was able to take him out.

He was the perfect little man and I enjoyed every second that we spent together as a family.

This is us on our first adventure out to Carl's Jr. Good times, good times.