movin' on up...

to the east side!

To deluxe apartment in the sky!

-Theme from "The Jeffersons"

Greetings from 6East .. the Cardiac Care Unit! (Note there's no "intensive" in the name - wahoo!) We have moved to step down, and we're happily getting settled into our new digs. Sorry we didn't give you any advance notice about this major change. Oh, wait - that's because we didn't know ourselves until today. We had a hint that he was one of the healthier kids in the CICU, but they didn't give us the A-OK to head to step down until about 15 minutes before they were ready to move him. And then, it took 6 nurses (no stretch - it really took six of them!) to help me load up all the cards, pictures, and door decor; the piles of forbidden snack food we had surreptitiously hidden under the bed; the books and toys we'd spread over every flat surface in the room. It was quite a scene we made as we trekked over from the west side to the east side with our stuff overflowing the little red wagon Jay's been riding in.

But we're now busy figuring out how things work on the good side of the hall - how to order Jay's own meals, finding the secret stash of cookies in the nourishment room, how to call the nurse. It's SO much quieter around here - they have a different monitor, and its beeps are far less scary-sounding than the ICU beeps. Or maybe that's just my imagination...

Here's the view out our room - these cool colored glass panels cover the whole front of the hospital, and our room looks right through them. It's gorgeous.

One thing that is louder is the Life Flight helicopter. You can actually hear it coming and going now as it lands on the roof of the CICU unit. (Apparently the staff elevator actually goes right up to the helipad!) Jay will love to hear it if he ever decides to wake up from his coma ... er, morphine-induced nap. Seriously, it's just a nap - but it's a really good one.

And, in the "Things the Fosters REALLY Didn't Need Right Now" department, we're down one pair of hands. Derek woke up at 3 a.m. last night with a seriously upset stomach (fan-freakin-tastic timing, right?!), and we decided to quarantine him. Because the Ronald McDonald House does not allow sick people there (understandably, since they see so many immune-compromised kids/families), he got the boot from there too. One stomach bug, and poor fella is suddenly homeless and no one is willing to come within 6 feet of him! But RMH gave us a discount voucher at the Sheraton down the road, and I took advantage of Jay's naptime to shuttle him from one venue to the other. He's currently getting settled into his new digs, and hopefully he can sleep it off in a day or so.

So, while I don't want anyone to stop praying for Jay's continued healing, would you mind sending some good thoughts for Derek too? If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane. And someday, we'll look back on this whole time with a big hearty chuckle.