Home Sweet Home

We arrived home late this afternoon, after Hope lied to the docs as much as possible to get her realease papers. It kind of felt like a prison jail break, much like the Brady Bunch when they were trapped in jail during their trip out west. While Marsha and Greg made out (and Florence Henderson was apparently jealous), Papa Brady was able to in a Dukes of Hazzard style put enough shoe laces and if I remember right use Cindy's doll to drag the keys over to escape. We hit horrible weather and traffic on the way home, so we had to pull off the highway for Hope to clear her trache hole (yeah that's right, my wife has a trache hole) so she could continue breathing the rest of the way home. I mentioned previously her vacuum cleaner for the saliva in her mouth, while now we have a portable one. By the way, when she turns it on it sounds like a generator. It should be fantastic when she does it 87 times each night. I think I'll be sleeping about as well as Linda Blair in the Exorcist. By the way, I watched Hope look like her for 5 days in ICU only without the rotating head.

I have to admit I was and still am freaking out a bit about coming home so quickly and being responsible for her. The first thing she did was take a shower despite me begging for her to wait until tomorrow for the home health nurse to pop in. I was an absolute wreck the entire time she did it, but she did fine and of course felt a million times better. In Ghostbusters when they were slimed, Hope was in much worse condition after 8 days of torture and healing.

She's trying to sleep now, and I'm trying to catch up on my DVR recordings. All I've got is a couple of Law and Orders and Family Guys, what happened to TV while we were gone? I do appreciate the opportunity for my first ever blogs, it was like a trip down mammory lane (yes Anna, I did spell that one incorrectly on purpose and as she and many other probably noted I don't use spell check). I say mammory lane because most of the movies I really watched were sCinemax (another intentional typo) but fell back to Rocky and Karate Kid when Mom or Dennis walked in the room. That's also when Shadow jumped off the couch for the record. Shadow was our amazing dog that got blamed for every spilled drink or food for 10 years and we trained to sit on the couch but to jump off every time she heard Mom and Dennis' door or the front door open. I really meant that I was there with Kurt while he did such things as watch sCinemax and I was reading my scriptures and practicing my trache hole cleaning skills, just in case the need ever arose.

I told my same brother earlier today that Hope is talking some, although pretty quietly and it's not always easy to understand what she's saying. So I pick and choose what I can hear at my convenience. I love you comes in loud and clear (although I'm still waiting for that one), but can you clean the kitchen or put away the week plus worth of clothes for me is hard to understand. I'm still not winning any arguments, but it's cool to feel like I got in the last word for the first time ever.

We also had an incredible visit today from Stephanie, the woman that went through this same surgery recently that Hope talked to previously. We had a great visit, sharing all kinds of stories and offering great advice back and forth (she's going through radiation and chemo now for the first time). It was great to talk to another family that has gone through so many similar situations. I think Hope will be back blogging now, so I'll probably be signing off for a while. If you ever see a novel long blog, it's probably me jonesing to get some sarcasm out. Thank you all for the love and support, we can't wait to be normal again and are hoping Anna and then Kris will take over the family health news soon. We're ready for boring again, and make sure you visit us on Naked Tuesdays and cheer on the Red Sox.

- Just Jake.