Pit Stop

On the way home,  we got to stay at the classy Camino Inn, where folding the towels all fancy is supposed to fool you into thinking you're staying at a 5 star place.

But in reality, you can clearly see, it rates just less than 5 star…when the curtains and bedding are from the 80’s, and there are pennies on the floor and hair on the pillows (that you have yet to lay your own head upon…), they might as well save time and just chuck the towels in a pile on the counter in the bathroom.  The good news is, we didn’t have to pay for our stay…

           

 

 

Bogey had a couple of appointments (Cleft Palate check up, EKG, ECHO, etc.) as well as a cardiac catheterization, so we were in and out of the hospital for a couple of days.

       (Right after the cath.  He had to lie flat for 4 hours.  He slept for 2, and cried for the other 2.  Right before I got to hold him, he pulled his G-tube button out.  He was so mad.  By the time I got that back in, he was furious.  It took quite a while to get his heart rate back down, and for him to settle enough to get back to sleep.)

This time, Bogey’s overnight hospital stay was little different.  Because he is older, he is much more aware of his surroundings.  He knew when I was there, and when I wasn’t.  When I wasn’t, he was not that happy.  It was hard for me to leave him, so my trips to snag Diet Coke were few, and far between. :)  Thank goodness for the Radio Flyer wagon…he got some good long snoozes, and well, you know what that meant for me.  We were both happy.

We were able to take him around the 3rd floor “cordless”.  He loved that.

  

We felt like it was important for our kids to see where we’ve been and where we’ll continue to go, so we let them come up to the hospital when Bogey got discharged.  They were able to see the CVICU, where he spent most of last summer.  We took them down to the Ford Surgery Center to see where we take him when he has to have surgeries.  They strolled through the cafeteria where my solace flows from the soda fountain. 

We went around the 2nd floor waiting areas where we spent countless hours pacing, and fretting.  (When I say “we” I really just mean “me”.  If Ace ever paced or fretted, he did it secretly…)

Now when we go back in about 6 months, our kids will be able to picture in their minds, where we are.  Hopefully it’s helpful for them.

Also, while we were there, I was able to go running.  I took Bogey in the stroller and took a little jog around the Stanford campus.  It was huge.  I actually got lost, and had to use my GPS on my phone to get me back to the hospital, where my surroundings were much more familiar! I couldn’t get over how much bigger the campus was compared to BYU-Idaho, where I went to college.

                                          

(the pictures are so dark and shadowy…I used my camera phone…so of course you can’t really see how beautiful the campus really is.)

As I was running, I got to thinking (no wonder I got lost!)  I was thinking about this past year, and how many things happened.  I thought about how shocked and traumatized I was when we learned about Bogey’s diagnosis.  Then, I started remembering all of the people we’ve met along the way. 

Earlier in the day, I had run into a man that we met last summer at the Ronald McDonald House.  He had a son in the hospital.  Just recently, his son passed away, and this man and his family were just packing up their belongings and moving out of the RMD.  So, for so many others, things were worse than what we’d been through. 

I thought of all of this in relation to the college campuses I’d been on.  For us, our life experiences up to last year, were BYU-Idaho.  It’s not the smallest campus…it’s grown, but compared to ISU-Idaho Falls, it’s big.  We’d had some trials along the way, and we learned a lot from them.  When we learned we were having twins upping our family total to 7, we graduated to the BYU-Provo campus.  Quite a bit bigger than what we were accustomed to.  We were expecting to pull out a GPS, or at least stop and look at a campus map.  Well, then of course, when we got Bogey’s diagnosis, that was our Stanford.  That was as big and challenging as we’ve ever experienced.   

This past year, we’ve done a lot of navigating in uncharted (for us, at least) territory.  We’ve had to loop around, and retrace our steps.  We’ve had to take some time to really go over and review our course.  Yes, we’ve had detours, and setbacks.  But we haven’t had to be alone.  We’ve had so much help and guidance along the way.  Our GPS has been our religion, our friends and our family.

Granted, there are bigger campuses than Stanford, I’m sure. I just haven’t ever seen them, or been there, and I don’t really have much of a desire to tour them.  Now that we’re familiar with Stanford, we love it, and feel super blessed to have it in our lives.