road to home

So we're officially on our road to home! Hopefully just 3 or 4 more weeks now! Can you believe we've been at Riley, split between home family and hospital family, for over 16-1/2 weeks! Obviously, Malachi needs to behave (especially his heart), but here is what needs to be accomplished by John and I before we can bring baby HOME!

*Nursing Check-Offs:
Trach classes (two sessions--not mandatory, but definitely proved helpful)
Two-person trach change (pulling trach/placing trach)
One-person emergency trach change (*pretty much only thing we each have left to do*)
Trach care (cleaning trach hole (stoma) and changing dressing)
Medication (name/usage/side effect awareness, drawing up meds)
Food administration (measuring, using feeding pump)
G-Tube care (cleaning site)

*After all that is completed, we have our official "discharge planning" to set up the following:
*Ventilator Class (8 hours)
*Ventilator Check-Offs (8 hours)
*8-hour nursing shift (as individual)
*24-hour nursing shift (as individual)
*Discharge date!
*Interview home nursing agencies, get all that set up.


For those of you with home pediatric nursing experience in the Indianapolis area, do you have any input or opinion regarding Tendercare, Loving Care, or Pediatric Nursing Specialists?

For those of you with children in a fragile condition similar to Malachi's, do you think 8 to 12 hours of day nursing help is enough?

For those of you with home nursing help, any tips for adjusting to having a relative stranger in your home for multiple hours a day? Also, any questions I should be asking during our interviews with the different agencies?

For those of you that have been following our little man from the beginning, can you believe that we are even going to be able to bring Malachi HOME!?!??! Praise be to God!