We're in Omaha

We arrived, safe and sound, in Omaha yesterday morning. After Anthony and I took a nap we headed to the hospital for a tour compliments of one of Anthony's nurses, Amanda. She was his nurse once, when he was first in the hospital before his transplants, but we kept in contact with her above any of Anthony's other nurses.

The pediatric floor has undergone a nice remodel, and now has only private rooms. Anthony was in a private room most of his time there. The only time he shared a room was after his transplant when he was sharing a room with a little girl who had her transplant days before Anthony. They've added more rooms and painted the rooms, put in wood floors, and added a child sized table to the rooms.

The PICU hasn't changed much, if at all. The one major change is that you must have a nurse or other authorized hospital personnel give you access to the PICU and pediatric floor. You used to be able to walk in, and then were supposed to sign in at the nurses' stations...but no one did that.

Today Anthony had a clinic appointment. We saw one of the nurse coordinators, the nutritionist, and a surgeon. The surgeon was doing her fellowship when we were here two and a half years ago, and she is now a part of the team full time. She had placed one of Anthony's central lines, and I believe she assisted in Mark's surgery, too. It was nice to see her, and she was glad to see how well Anthony and Mark are doing.

You're going to let them do WHAT to me?


Oh, you said LOOK at my tummy, not poke at it!


Our appointment was at noon, it's now one o'clock, and we're still waiting. How typical.


My mom will recognize this picture. Anthony fell asleep on her leg, in this position, the day we were waiting for the team to tell us we could go home. He fit perfectly in the crook of her leg. Now he hangs out all over the place.


The apartment we rented was on this hill. The buildings have now been torn down so a Health Science Center can be built. Mark took this picture, standing almost directly across the street from where our apartment was. You can see the Lied Transplant Center down the hill (the talll building). That is how close we were to the hospital, treatment center, and out-patient clinic. It was a chilly walk when we made it, but we were close!



Tomorrow we will attend the reunion breakfast tomorrow. Anthony's surgeon is giving the welcoming speech, and Chris Klug will be the keynote speaker. I'm anxious to hear his speech, but I'm not really interested in the other speeches. There are children's activities tomorrow, too, so we'll do that instead. There's a luncheon, too. I think that we may be interviewed by a TV station tomorrow during the day sometime. We'll see if that actually comes to fruition.

We'll be home Sunday!

Love, Laurie