Friday's the Day

Here's the plan for Maria's discharge (if there can be such a thing as "a plan" when one is admitted to the NICU):

Maria is scheduled to come on Friday, with or without a moniter. If she has a brady between now and Thursday, we'll do a quick monitor training session and bring her home with it. If no bradys between now and Thursday, she'll come home wireless.

We've been programmed to take things "one day at time" for the last 54 days. Now that we need to begin planning for things, I feel a bit jolted. We have a big week ahead. I think we should call this week, "Summer Camp Week" and adopt the appropriate principal of operation for success: Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility.

Joe and I can be like the old Summer Camp directors: He can wear the director's hat, and call me the "cutest girl in the NICU" and I can carry around the pink flamingo and inspect everyone's isolettes in the morning. Then Joe can entertain the crowd, leading them in rousing renditions of "Waltzing with Nurses", instead of "Waltzing with Bears" and I can sit in the background doing all the real work that makes the NICU operate smoothly. We can look for a swimming partner for Maria, but she'll already have lots of kids asking her because she's a big 5 pounder who can bathe in the white area. She'll hog all the chocolate milk at dinner because she's such a snorty pig. At the end of a long day, Joe and I will retire to the boat, where we'll have some beers and cigars with the 3 Amigos. On our way back to the campers, we'll bust some teenagers for making out at the lamp post. And when we're finally done with this week, you can be sure that we'll be singing the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" all the way home.

Seriously, though...we are excited to have Maria home. We've been trying to get her into the hottest pediatric practice in town, but Dr. Webster (who is like a local celebrity amongst parents here in Erie) is not accepting new patients. So I pulled out my "ask 1 annoying question per day" card and asked Dr. Balsan to call Dr. Webster and tell him how wonderful we are, and would he accept Maria into his practice. Dr. Balsan smiled and said he'd be happy to make the call. I hope it works out. This favor was a bit unfair of me, I must admit. Joe told me once that you can pretty much get a doctor to do whatever you want if you can just get him on the phone...