Saturday morning one of the doctors came in to see me and we talked about me going home later that day. She said that the CT scan looked good. I was switched to oral antibiotics and they want to monitor me on them for a bit before they feel okay releasing me. Also, apparently my white blood cell count was slightly elevated that morning so they wanted to draw another set of labs that evening and then let me know if i can go home after that. She said that they wanted to monitor me on the antibiotics for 24 hours but she could maybe be persuaded to only do 12. I asked her if they would remove my stitches before I left and she said that they could - usually they wait about 10 days and take them out at a nurses' flow-up visit, but since I have been here 11 days they could do it before I go home.

I was incredibly bored all day on Saturday... First of all there was absolutely nothing on T.V. worth watching so I read a lot and just sat around hoping that my counts would be good later that day. I took some time to start packing my things in hopes that I would be released.

So they came and drew labs at 5 p.m. and then I ordered some dinner and waited. The doctor apparently tried to call my room but I never heard the phone ring, so she called the nurse who brought me the phone. The doctor said that as long as I was feeling well, I could go home!! Yea!! I quickly let DH know and then the nurse started to make preparations for my check-out. She came and removed my staples - which hurt a little bit - and then she said they were preparing the check-out information that they needed to send home with me. Unfortunately we were now at the nurse change-over time so I would have to wait a while until the new nurse could come and go over the info with me and deaccess my port. And they also had to do a last round of vitals - blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and oxygen level.

DH and a couple of the kids showed up to take me home but we ended up waiting probably over an hour before I was finally able to be released. They had to send my prescriptions down to the university hospital because the pharmacy at Huntsman was already closed - and the one at the university was open until 9 p.m. I ended up sending DH down to get the prescriptions because we were waiting so long for the nurses. And he ended up making it back up almost to my room before I was finally ready to go.

It felt nice (and weird) actually putting on real clothes. I have worn a hospital gown for way too long now. DH had to help me with my socks and shoes - it is hard to reach my feet right now. Plus, my left leg and foot is incredibly swollen - we had to loosen my tennis shoe a ton just to get it on.

It was definitely nice getting outside for the first time in 11 days. The ride home was uneventful and as soon as we got there I had to say goodbye to my oldest who was on her way down to BYU for her sophomore year.

Thanks to everyone who helped out my family while I was in the hospital. I know we all greatly appreciated all of the love and kindness that we felt.