The Road Home

We got an amazing surprise today - a home use vapotherm machine. What does that mean? If the next 24 hours go well on the machine, they will start setting us up for home hospitalization. Avigayil will still be hospitalized, but it will be at home. All the equipment she will need will be brought to us and our bedroom will be turned into a mini NICU. She will not be able to leave the house (or even the room since her machine needs to be plugged in to work). Doctors, nurses and therapists will all still see her, but at our house.

While we had discussed the theory of this machine with the doctors, we had no idea that this was coming today. In fact, even the doctors said they were not sure it was going to happen until it did. The machines where just approved and Avigayil is the first baby from the hospital to get one. Every doctor in the NICU came to see it. The nurses all came in to get trained on it. The technician made sure I understood everything. The pulminologist spent plenty of time going over everything with me from what was happening now to what the next few months and years will look like. He feels that it would be best to ween her off the flow slowly over a few months. She would usually need to be in the hospital for all that time. This new machine and home hospitalization would allow her to be home during this time.  

Home Hospitalization is a relatively new concept. It is only for stable patients needing extended care. Studies have shown that patients in home hospitalization programs do better and recover faster than those kept in the traditional hospital setting. It has been shown to also drastically reduce stress. While it will not be the same home coming that most people have, and it will not mean that her ordeal is over, it would mean that Avigayil would be home. For the first time we would be a complete family.

We are really hoping that the next 24 hours go well.