There's No Place Like Home

Didn’t Dorothy from Kansas say it best: There’s no place like home.

Even after Dr. House told us not to even ask to go home before 7 days, Wonder Toad showed them that it could be done.

Most of our Niles friends know that a 15-year-old Freshman named Alex Wentz committed suicide. He was lovingly known as Big Mac to all of his Howard Township Baseball family. Big Mac was a great kid and unfortunately had issues that he couldn’t resolve and didn‘t have someone in his life that identified his troubled head/heart. Friday night we had a cry together over Big Mac and the unfairness of it all. Johnny’s emotions were very, very frail on Saturday morning.

On Saturday morning our favorite surgical resident, Dr. Kyle Yancey, stopped in to check on Johnny and said things were looking very good. Johnny told him a bit about the reason for his fragile emotional state and Dr. Yancey said he would talk to Dr. House about letting us go home either Saturday or Sunday. I really thought they would keep him until Sunday, but when Dr. House came in a little while later he gave us our walking papers.

I want to take a minute to talk about the quality of care we received at IU Hospital. It was impressive. From the registration process all the way through discharge we really never had any hold-ups and were surrounded by the greatest people. I mentioned earlier about the nurse that rounded through the surgical suites all day to give the waiting families updates on their loved ones. That was awesome and made the wait much more bearable.

The nursing staff on Johnny’s unit was AMAZING! OK, we had the one chatty nurse (Chatty Kat), but even she was nice. . . she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut or the light off! At least she was nice. We had a total of 6 other nurses during our stay: Stephanie, Colleen, Laura, Jennifer, Melissa, and Brooke.

They were all professional, personable, caring, and intelligent. I never even felt the need to question what was happening. And we all know that I have NO PROBLEM questioning something if it isn’t right. When Johnny finally got to his room Monday night, I was reviewing his drips and noticed that there wasn’t an antibiotic hanging. Ginger and I decided that as soon as the nurse came back in we would jump her - - - I mean, ask her about it. Wouldn’t you know that the next time she entered the room (about 2 minutes later) she was carrying the antibiotic with her. Good thing, too. We were ready for her.

We never, ever, ever had to wait for the call light. Seriously. NEVER.

The only time I had to put on my Pit Bull collar was on Friday night. It was 10 p.m. and Brooke came in to tell us that we had to move to another unit because they needed his bed for someone coming out of ICU. If you can just imagine, I was not at all interested in moving my sleeping Toad to another unit at 11 p.m. As I said earlier, Friday was emotional for Johnny anyway and I was not going to take “NO” for an answer.

Brooke was trying her best to tell me that it wasn’t possible to stay in the room, and I was trying my best to let her know that we had squatter’s rights. So, I did the only thing I felt I could do . . . I asked for the charge nurse. Bruce the charge nurse came in to let me know the reason why Johnny had to move. I told Bruce the reasons why Johnny wasn’t going to move.

Here was the scenario: There was an open room on a med/surg floor for a male patient. There was a male patient coming out of ICU that needed a room because ICU needed to put someone else in that bed. Johnny no longer needed to be monitored, so they wanted him on the med/surg floor, the ICU guy was coming to Johnny’s room and the newbie was going to ICU. I told Bruce that I saw another option: Move ICU guy to med/surg and leave my Johnny out of it. Bruce gave me a quizzical look and then called the charge nurse on med/surg. By golly, wouldn’t you know -- It Worked! I know what most of you are thinking, and you can even ask Johnny: I was really nice about the whole thing and never even had to raise my voice. I was more than willing to, but never actually had to. I thanked Bruce profusely and told him that was my idea of great customer service. I will be writing a letter to the Director of that unit to praise all of the people we encountered. It was a great experience overall.

The residents and med student that rounded on Johnny were the greatest bunch! Dr. Yancey led the team and showed great compassion and great leadership. He is a genuinely caring young man and will be the greatest surgeon when he is finished. I would love to know where he ends up; and I think he will be doing great work in the future. I wish I could remember the other names. I know the third year med student’s name started with a B, and he is from Cameroon, but I’ve drawn a blank and for that I am truly sorry. There were several times that he stopped by on his own because of his class schedule, and he would have to catch up on rounds without the rest of the team. He will also be a great physician and is a kind-hearted and gentle man. He told us that Dr. Yancey is his role model and we agreed that he was worthy of that title. Ginger and I would pack goody bags for them when they rounded at night and you would have thought we were providing them with a steak dinner! More than once they told us it had been their dinner for that night. These guys really work long, hard hours. It gives me a newfound respect for people who decide to become a physician.

We were so impressed with Dr. House as well. We didn’t know it going in (and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway) but Johnny was the first patient that Dr. House put the HAI pump in since he’s been at IU. He placed multitudes at Sloan-Kettering, but Johnny is his poster boy for IU. On Thursday when the Nuclear Medicine team didn’t want to try the infusion study out of fear of messing it up, Dr. House himself came down on Friday morning and did the study. Thankfully, it went BEAUTIFULLY and showed that the liver perfusion is exactly as it should be from the pump. That means the chemo will go to the liver and nowhere else.

We appreciated every visit from Dr. House. He stopped in at least once a day, and sometimes twice. He was always willing to listen to our fears and concerns and addressed them so that when he left we always felt confident again.

When they sprung us on Saturday morning, we were a little surprised. Ginger and I had everything packed and ready to go in short order and waited for Johnny to give us the thumbs-up. He wanted to make sure his tummy was settled enough before we hit the road. Our nurse, Jennifer, made sure we had everything we needed to make the trip, including some really nice pain meds. Thanks, Jennifer! He made the trip without any problems whatsoever. Slept most of the way, actually.

So that brings us back to Niles where Johnny and I have spent the last day trying to catch up on sleep and getting everything put back in order. We are getting there, slowly but surely.

And in case anyone was wondering about how Ginger and I would do for a week in a hospital room with Johnny: I wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it without her. She is an amazing woman whose mission in life is to make things better for the people around her. I love her very much and am so lucky to have a mother-in-law that I can say I very genuinely LOVE! Thanks a million times, Ginger! I love you.