Happy Home Day!

That’s right, friends. In approximately an hour and after nine months, give or take, I’ll be discharged.

I’d be lying if I claimed that I’m not a little nervous. Change, especially change this big, is hard. As I wrote about in much greater detail in my last post, there are major ways in which my life will be different now, and it’ll inevitably—realistically—take a lot of adjustment to figure out how to navigate my new “normal,” both logistically and emotionally. How my identity will shift.

But my anxiety is far outweighed by my excitement, first and foremost about the fact that I’m able to go home at all. I can’t afford to forget that it wasn’t long ago that I wasn’t expected to live. The incredible medical care I received, the love and support of my family and friends, and, probably, my stubbornness pulled me through, but just barely.

It’s been so long since I’ve been able to sit next to my husband and just be. There’s this sense of having to make the most of the little time we can spend together that precludes watching TV or sitting in silence. I can’t wait for the everyday.

The last week has been full of goodbyes. My team here has been exceptional, and my stay here has been long. I’ve thus developed meaningful working relationships with medical professionals whom it’ll be strange not to see on a regular basis. I’ll likely miss many of them. I’m returning, though, to an existence in which it’ll be much easier and more natural to spend time with people whose presence in my life isn’t by nature transitory. After what’s happened this year, I value these connections more than I ever have.

As I wait for a wheelchair taxi to pick me up and bring me to the next stage of my life, I’m full of gratitude and (eager) anticipation. Tonight I’ll sleep in a new bed in a new apartment. My husband’s snoring, not the beep of hospital machines, will wake me up in the middle of the night, and I’ll never have been so happy.