There’s No Place Like Home

We made it home today, 10/28/2025, Tuesday, at 3:30pm. It’s so good to be back home.

Today was absolutely crazy! Nothing was the same. Breakfast for Willie didn’t come till 9:30 and it was kind of quiet from 7:00 am to 9:00 am. Normally everything happens from 7:00 am to 8:00 am during shift change; new nurse gets intro, blood pressure, temp, breakfast (liquid diet for Willie), medication, surgery check in, X-rays, blood draws, change dressings and on and on. After 9:30 it was non-stop traffic in the room as we waited to know for sure that we were going home. We had a good visit with one of our night nurses, Tara (Tar - uh), that took care of Willie on Thursday and Friday nights (day 3 & 4) as she was getting off shift and came in today goodbye. She was great and somehow we all became friends and built connections during that 2 day night period.

The dietician, Melinda Johnson, came in around 9 to train us on how to use the Infinity external feeding pump and portable backpack.

Luckily Sam came by to join in the training and soon after Debbie & Joe and Erica also came so it was truly comforting to have all the support in the room for this education and plenty of extra nurses around to call and text whenever we need to. My mom came by too to give a final goodbye to room 4424. 👋🏻

Next up Dr. Loewen came in to give us the good news that Willie was well enough to go home and thrive at home. We will go back for a follow up appointment with him on 11/3

Debbie, Dr Loewen the amazing surgeon, Willie all smiles because we are going home, and me.

Sam, Erica, Willie, me, Debbie & Joe (on his birthday 🎂).

Me and my mom. We had a great view from that 4th floor window. We could see Wenatchee HS and also helicopters 🚁 coming in during our 8 days at the hospital.

I got to practice giving Willie a shot 💉in his stomach for Lovenox (enoxaparin) is a blood-thinning drug used to prevent blood clots in the leg veins in patients who are on bed rest or who are having hip replacement, knee replacement, or abdominal surgery.l

He has a long list of drugs that he has to continue to take at home until we meet with then surgeon again. In order to get out, we needed to have the drugs and final sign out. I had to go down to the pharmacy 3 times to get his ginormous bag of prescriptions to take home with us. Finally they had it done at 3pm and they gave Willie a ride to the curb in a wheelchair per hospital protocol. He only has one tube anttached now (feeding) so freedom. Also we have a 2 week supply of “food” for the tube and a whole bunch of gauzes, tape, gauze, syringes and more. He will be using the Infinity feeding tube for a month or two to get his nutrition It’s not forever, but he’ll need it until he can eat normally. His new normal will be small meals 6 times a day vs 3 big meals That should work well for him since he’s a snacker anyway And he has to go through 4 more rounds of chemo soon so this system will actually be a benefit at this point

I’ll just summarize today by saying that it’s so nice to be home. We both got showers. Willie had his first since last Tuesday (10/21) morning before surgery. And me, my first time home since an hour last Sunday am. Sam brought home food from Peking for us. I cooked up some bone broth for Willie and we both had ice cream for desert. Dr Loewen said eating is just “recreational” right now. Most of his nutrition will come from the feeding tube, 2000 calories a day. But he’ll need to fit in liquids to stretch out his esophagus and keep it moist. He’s had a very very hoarse voice since the surgery and is hard to hear. This was caused by the nose tube ans also intubation during the”e 5 hour surgery. Apparently this is common annd they say his voice should eventually improve to normal. All in all, a very busy and good day. There really is no place like home!! ❤️

I

PS 10/29 morning: a quick update about our first night home. We both got lots of sleep after getting all set up around 10pm. No more noisy hospital. Just gave meds once in the night and woke up around 7am 🕖 because it was time to fill up the feeding machine thingy. All is going well and Willie is sitting up in bed drinking his first cup of coffee and looking forward to running around the house causing trouble today.

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