We are in Nashville tonight in a lovely hotel room. Our friends, the Richardsons, wanted to put us up in a hotel tonight - and they made us a reservation in a lovely hotel.. so once again - I feel like I am in the lap of luxury. It makes me really hope that my house is still clean when I get home tomorrow! I wish I had brand new sheets on my bed! ha ha.
So yesterday when we left Philadelphia, we decided to drive through Hershey!!! Britt LOVES chocolate so we thought this would be like a pilgrimage for him. It was really a great trip! The drive was so beautiful. Lots of farmland - we even saw some Amish folk driving their buggy down the road. It made me think.. so many people go to Lancaster just to gawk at the Amish. I wonder if it bothers them to be such a tourist attraction. The country was lovely though. The trees are all turning up there. Now that we are in Tennessee - we can tell that the trees here aren't turning as much as they were up there.
Hershey was great! We went through a little tour that shows how the chocolate is made and we saw a 3D film that Elijah really loved. He got to package his own kisses, and we picked up a couple of things. It was a nice short stop on our long trip.
We drove from there to Lexington Virginia. I know I sound like a broken record - but Virginia is so lovely! Now.. we had a little adventure on the way. We used a google map to get directions to the hotel we were staying in last night. They were SO WRONG! We drove down this road that looked like it was going nowhere. The next instruction was to turn down "Poor House" road... We followed the directions perfectly until we went through a tunnel - and ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nothing!! No houses, no nothing!!! We quickly turned around and headed back to the highway. I called the hotel and got directions from them instead - and we made it to the hotel just fine. Apparantly we weren't the only ones who went down the road less traveled to middle of NOTHING!!! It was worth a good laugh.. :)
Today we got up and began our journey on to Nashville. Once we got here and checked in to our hotel, we went over to the outlet mall that took the place of Opryland.. (I think it's sad that I didn't even know that Opryland was no longer in existence!) They have an Aquarium Restaurant there and Elijah was in heaven!!! They had several sharks, stingrays, eels and other fish in the HUGE tank.. He loved it!!
We are ready to be at home tomorrow..
Almost Home..
Luxury never felt so good...
Since we arrived in Philadelphia, we have had less that comfortable accomodations. The Ronald McDonald House is such a wonderful thing and I am so glad that we had the opportunity to be able to stay there - but our room this time was horrible. We were right next to the laundry room where they have the industrial washing machine and dryer.. and right above the teen room where they have a loud juke box and we could hear the thump thump of the base. They have beds at the Ronald McDonald House that are supposed to be top of the line and really comfortable - but we just don't like them. They are sleep number beds and for the life of me I can't figure out my number! The first night we stayed there, Elijah slept on the majority of my half of the bed - My back hurt so badly the next day! The next two nights I slept on a chair bed in the hospital with a led sheild between Elijah and I. Truthfully, it was almost more comfortable than the sleep number bed!!! In both locations, we had to travel in order to bathe. At the Ronald, we had to walk down the hall and pray there wasn't anyone else using the shower room. At the hospital, we had to get on the elevator and go from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor - then walk through the lobby to another set of elevators and then ride up to the 8th floor to get to the shower. Most of the time you could shower in the patient room, but because of Eli's radioactivity, we had to go use the parent resource center. The parent resource center itself is WONDERFUL - but the journey there was pretty inconvenient. Elijah was released from the hospital today. I feel like I am in heaven now. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation took care of our hotel room and put us up in a lovely hotel. We have two double beds in our room - with big fluffy white pillows, a view of the Philly skyline, and a bathroom right in the room.. I just soaked in the tub. It was wonderful. Britt, Elijah and I are all in the same room - which hasn't happened much in the past few days. Anyone who knows us, knows that we are usually always together. Things feel more normal now, even though we are still in Philadelphia. We really like Philly and would probably love it more if we could spend more time seeing stuff.
Tomorrow we are going to go to the zoo! I want to take lots of pictures while we are here..More soon!
Strange New World
We are in Philadelphia. It's a different setting than we are used to for hospital stays. It's odd to not to know where things are and to feel at home with everything. We are strangers here. We see all these other families here in the hospital and we don't know them. We don't know their stories. I think I miss that feeling of being connected quite a bit. I miss having our nurses that know when Elijah is really hurting and what is normal for him. I am not saying the nurses here are bad. They have actually been wonderful! Everyone has. I mean, we are in a world class facility that is constantly voted the #1 pediatric hospital in the country.. It's amazing. It's just unfamiliar and not home. I am so thankful that Britt and I researched and found out about this treatment. I really have a good feeling about it and I think it's going to work for Elijah. I just know it is. Elijah is miserable right now. He can't move too much - the catheter is really bothering him. He is asking for pain meds all the time because it's bothering him so much. He doesn't normally do that unless he really needs it. I hope they understand that. They don't know him. They don't know us. Part of me wishes that they did, but then the other part is thankful that we haven't had to be up here too much and prays that we won't be up here enough that they will know us well.