Shedding The Excess

It's been 41 days since we brought Harlow back home from the hospital. It's odd to think that I used to love the month of April. Not just because it's my birthday month, but it means spring is here. Everything is colorful and blooming.  The weather is patio worthy and slowly all the heavy winter apparel is packed away. A fresh start. Strangely April has come to resemble something different all together for me. It's the start of a nightmare. The beginning of an undesired journey. A membership opening to a club that I never wished to be a part of. 

I spent the entire month of April watching my daughter's petals turn brown and fall off. I watched her once sparkly aura turn to black. I watched my entire meaning for living, fading away.  

Please don't think I'm not aware that April is also the month that Harlow slowly began to improve.  I know that her health began rebuilding in this month as well, but April still has a dark shadow hovering over it, in my mind.

 But now, she's home. 

Yesterday we had another follow up appointment with her surgeon to see how her heel was doing.  To see if that 6th procedure could finally be her last for many years to come. 

And it was. All of it.  The heel, graft and skin flap all looked healthy, pink and healing. As the doctor removed her wound vac, I nearly choked up.  For what seems like forever, she has had one or two cords attached to her legs.  I've had the luxury of lugging around the satchel and machine, all the while becoming an expert on how not to trip over the cords, close them in car doors, make sure the machine is always charged etc.  As the doc packed it all away...I felt a sense of relief release. Harlow felt it too.  One less accessory. We usually LOVE adding a ton of accessories, but after this whole ordeal, we also appreciate the minimalist approach. 

She began with so many cords, tubes, machines and ivs hanging from her frail body.  I loved the nurses who knew how much it meant to me to see another machine taken away. Another tube disconnected.  Clearing the way to my beautiful baby girl.  

Harlow went from being the sickest baby in the PICU to being the happiest baby everywhere.  She knows that she is no longer tied down with a wound vac. She knows she is free to crawl all over this world.  We still have the back of a cast and ace bandage on her right foot, so she's not able to walk yet.  But what a relieving process to slowly shed the excess. To slowly get back to where we were supposed to already be. 

I'm thankful for her life. I'm thankful for all the machines, tubes and cords. They helped save her precious life.  But...I'm so happy to leave them behind...

April Showers Bring May Flowers.  I believe that. Those horrible April storms, allowed my daughter to reblossom in May.