I spent the morning with Soojung and Alice in the PICU at Johns Hopkins. Alice is there recovering from her spinal fusion she had on Tuesday. I got to see Alice start eating and get transferred from the bed to sitting. All good things. The PICU at Hopkins is phenomenal – large rooms, lots of natural light (see photo above), great nursing staff. I can’t believe that Soojung says this, but she feels most relaxed in the PICU because the nursing staff is 1:1, so someone is in there every 10-15 minutes checking on something or helping Alice with her respiratory stuff. So Soojung feels comfortable enough to sleep soundly at night. Once on the regular floor, where the staffing is 4:1, the she feels like she has to be more awake and alert to advocate for Alice because the nurses are have more patients to take care of – so if Alice needs something right away, she has to track the nurse down. Even though the PICU is phenomenal and Alice is doing well and I know all the kids there are getting excellent care, it is still quite something – walking past rooms and rooms of little, tiny kids who are working so hard to get better and their sleep-deprived parents.
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I got home and picked up Vince and his friend Sam and shuttled them to the metro so they could head downtown to Jeremy’s office. A few months ago, Jeremy overheard one of his young, hip coworkers lament that she really wanted to go to the Kendrick Lamar concert tonight, but she didn’t have a car and the concert venue was in the middle of nowhere. Jeremy said – well you can borrow our car if you take two 16 year old boys and that is how Vince and Sam are going to the concert without us! Thank goodness we don’t have to go to the concert. So loud. So Jeremy drove into work today in our car (which he never does) and then we sent the boys in on the Metro to his work to meet up with his coworker and our car. I did what an old-lady mother does and gave them all foam earplugs which I insisted they take with them.
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Finally, I ended the day with Edda’s pick up from aftercare where I got to pet the resident therapy dog, Ysette!
