A room for himself

One hundred and eight days had passed since Dom slept in his crib and Trish in her bed.

Lucky for our dog Megan, her bed was portable.

So when we turned off the lights and looked at the baby monitor tonight, we could see his eyes weren't closed for a couple hours.

He wasn't upset, didn't do crib acrobatics. But home is unfamiliar again, quiet, without the beeping of monitors or ambient light from hospital hallways. Mom isn't sleeping three feet away.

He'll get used to this soon enough. Tonight, though, was a time to take it all in.

It was an exhausting day for them, starting with an early morning of packing the car while my sister (on her birthday, nonetheless) kept him busy.

By the time they got discharged and hit the road east, I was in full last-minute cleaning mode; extra mopping and vaccuuming still wasn't enough to contain my excitement.

Once they arrived, an SUV full of belongings accumulated in Calgary over the past nine months needed to be unpacked. There's still another load of toys to bring back another weekend.

Then we sat around like zombies. Content zombies, mind you, but just spent. And just like the first time they returned, it didn't take long for home to feel like home again. As if they'd never left.

They'll leave again next week, but the countdown is on. Two more hospital stays, two more doses of rituximab. They get to come home after each one.

This is a new normal we can live with.