Today was a good day for us.
Parker got transferred to a new bedroom again. We are still in Neuro-Surgery, about 100 ft from where we were, but this wing is much more casual with visiting hours and what we can feed him. They also removed his blood oxygenation monitor so he is no longer attached to any constant monitoring equipment-- they take his vitals every six hours or so.
They have stopped the morphine and he finished one of his iv antibiotics today--one more left. He still has two other antibiotics and his anti-convulsion medication which are taken orally.
The neuro-surgeon, Dr Puget, came by this evening accompanied by several other intern neuro-surgeons (they seem to travel in a pack). She has always been very serious and cautious but was smiling and casual tonight.
Dr. Puget said she examined him earlier and the incision looks great and it looks like it is healing well. She also informed us that the scan showed the shunt placement was good and seemed to be functioning well as it had already reduced the liquid in his brain. She also asked the nurse to take out the "extra" iv in his left foot-- he still has his bear-paw.
Although we arrived in a new room today, they have scheduled him to move to Neurology tomorrow. For the past two weeks we have understood that Neurology was our last stop at Necker. We don't really know how long we have to stay there and we know that we will be back in hospitals and clinics for some time in the future but the feeling of being one step away from going home has brightened our outlook considerably. Things change quickly here and the bed they have for us could be filled but we are cautiously thrilled with the prospect.
From the very first Sunday when I drove the Vespa to the hospital, the path we take is pretty straight-forward and consistent with a lot of one-way roads past major monuments with signs pointing you to the hospital as you get to the left bank of the Seine. It is mostly downhill so that even when we have come separately one of us can take the rental bicycles (Velib) without much effort.
The ride home was always more challenging. We haven't spent much time previously in this part of Paris and we would get lost pretty consistently coming out of the hospital trying to get over to the right bank. Sometimes we would find a small road with a lot of speed bumps that would test the limits of our heavily laden scooter and even when we would make it across the river we would end up coming up to the wrong way on a one way street and have to choose left or right. We consciously avoided the Champs Elysees and it's crowds of people and cars, afraid of our ability to react to eager tourists wanting to get that perfect photo by backing up into the middle of the street.
Whenever we would finally get a direct view in front of us of the Arc de Triomphe we were calmed a bit as we knew the road from there.
For the last couple of nights we have followed pretty much the same path home. While it is not as direct or fast as the one that took us here (and I still would not want to ride the bicycle up the hill) the feeling and frustration of not knowing the way back home are mostly gone.
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