Up here on the BMT floor, any time you see a parent pushing a blue plastic cart full of toys and clothes out through the double doors, you smile and give a thumbs up, you feel a little envious (and then feel guilty about the envy), you hope for your own turn someday.  You know that they're going home, that on the next trip they’ll be carrying their son or daughter, a beautiful child without hair, with the telltale green mask instead that lets you know we're all in the same club.

Tonight it was me.  I had a blue cart.  The nurses joked and celebrated and my cheeks hurt from smiling by the time I got to the elevators.  But I also felt the presence of other mothers and fathers, the ones without blue carts, as I pushed past the parent lounge.  I prayed with Jacob that we would not forget this, that we would be changed forever by the grace visited upon us in Room 21, and that we would remember the others who had to wait for their healing until the kingdom. 

JT woke up about fifteen minutes after falling asleep and said, “Want to read some prayers for you.”  So like I have many other nights, I turned to “Prayers for the Sick” in the Book of Common Prayer and started reading.  And as I did, it struck me how many of these prayers have already been answered for us, and how many have yet to be answered completely.  It’s a deep joy that runs with a feeling of great responsibility, seasoned with a little sadness.

Part of the sadness came from watching Justice pull away in my parents’ car this afternoon.  I won’t see him for almost two weeks, way too long to be without my cub.  But this is the next phase of transplant, another leg of the journey that brings our family closer to being together again.  Still, I’ll miss that boy something fierce.  Jodi and I will be here together until New Year’s Day settling into a healthcare routine, double-checking each other on the flushes and IV meds and tube feedings.  Then she’ll head north for a week to be with Justice at our home in Youngstown while JT and I enjoy some father / son time in Cincinnati.  Then we’ll switch.  And so on for about three months.  I’m choosing to look at this as a blessing – how many other fathers get to spend such extended one-on-one time with their kids?  But it’s serious business too.  In addition to the IV meds, JT’s going home on twelve different oral medications, most of which have to be given at least twice a day.  We’ll get more training tomorrow and a nurse will come to the apartment tomorrow night to help and then we’re on our own.

My family helped give JT’s bedroom a deep cleaning and Jodi hopes to get the main living area wiped down tomorrow morning.  Overall, we feel ready.  But it’s true that Room 21 has become a secure place for us; this will be the first big step out into the world.  In some ways it reminds me of what my freshman students experience during the first week of school as they transition from the middle school (where they have things figured out) to the high school (where they’re the youngest kids in a much bigger place.)  One of the quotes I give them right away is by John Shedd:  “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.”  So it is with Jacob Treebeard – yeah, he’d be safe and secure locked in this filtered room with 24-hour bedside nursing, but that’s not what life is about, that’s not what little boys are for.  So tomorrow we hoist the sail.

We watched the old Disney movie Homeward Bound tonight – seemed to fit. 

Healthwise:  counts are still good, but he threw up right before bedtime.  We haven’t seen that in a long time so it’s mildly concerning.  I think it was a combination of giving nighttime oral meds, starting the overnight tube feeds, and encouraging a bite of Cheerios all at once that did it.  All the same, please pray that this does not happen again.  I will certainly choose a different time to trot out the Cheerios from now on.

So.  Several meetings tomorrow.  God willing, discharge in the late afternoon.  Tomorrow night, I hope to type my update from our apartment with JT asleep upstairs.  Thank God – to Him be the glory for the mercy he’s shown us.

Bec posted some Christmas pictures of the boys if you want to check them out.

Midnight here.  Very soon I’ll settle in for what I hope is my last night ever on the floor of Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  Good night!