Lucas Camilo

Today we celebrate one week of being home from the hospital with Lucas! We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we could have never made it this far without the support of so many people – friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, even people who we’ve never met before that discovered Lucas’s blog through a friend or family member. Community.  When we first decided to be so public about Lucas’s challenges we had no idea the kind of response we would get, and it truly does lift our hearts everyday to know that so many people are thinking about and pulling for Lucas, not to mention sending us love as a family.

We blogged a lot about how anxious we were to get out of the hospital and perhaps left the impression at times that it was a horrific experience.  On the contrary, our stay in the NICU was not at all the way we had imagined spending our first months with Lucas, but under the circumstances it wasn’t so bad.  In fact, as long as Lucas couldn’t come home, Children’s was the best place in the world for him to be.  (And once he was ready to come home but insurance was stalling our discharge, it meant that Lucas had the most overqualified babysitters ever.)

When we finally got the green light to go home we rushed out so quickly that we didn’t get to say goodbye to all the wonderful people that cared for Lucas and who we became friends with at Children’s.  From the amazing array of nurses who looked after Lucas, to the doctors and residents, to therapists (respiratory, physical and occupation), to the case managers and social workers, to the NICU receptionists who greeted us with warm smiles everyday, to the custodial staff (some of whom spoke to Lucas in Spanish), to nutritionists, to other parents… the list goes on.  A special shout out to Lucas’s primary neonatologist, Dr. Stone (not just because we know he reads Lucas’s blog), Kim and Linda, and all the nurses who helped FINALLY shoo us out the door last Wednesday.  They did an incredible job of taking care of Lucas, and during this week of gratitude we are thankful for all the knowledge, commitment, and love they shared with us and Lucas.

And of course there were Lucas’s girlfriends.  Rumor is he had a lot of suitors, but no one was quite as persistent as Charm (and with a name like that what do you expect?!)  On the morning that he hit the road we managed to score an interview with Lucas’s favorite night nurse…