Susanne and Scott spent most of the night trying to get everything packed and ready for their trip to Boston. It was difficult for them to figure out what they would actually need, especially for Susanne who would be there for at least two to three weeks. A lot of the stuff could not be packed until this morning because it needed to be kept cold. Susanne had to try to estimate how much frozen breast milk she would need to bring to keep up with Paxton's demands. She knew from her last trip that this was not an easy estimation.
Chief showed up around 8:00am to pick everyone up to take them to the airport. After Scott and Susanne packed the last few items, they were ready to go. Susanne only had one more thing to do before she walked out of the door... a kitty count. Everytime she left to go anywhere, she always checked to make sure that both cats were accounted for before she walked out the door. She did this because even as astute as she was, both cats had on occasion slipped into a room or a closet without her knowledge. This morning she could not find Chloe. She was the scaredy cat, but Susanne knew all of her favorite hiding places. Unfortunately, she could not find her. She had everyone looking. They looked in the closet, the nursery, the pantry, the garage, under the bed, behind the dresser, and the bathtub. Still no Chloe. After about fifteen minutes of racking their brains, a lightbulb went off in Susanne's head...food. If there was one way to get to Chloe's heart it was through food. She would have to be in dire straits not to come out for food. Susanne had everyone else load up in the car and she pulled out a can of the smelliest cat food she could find. Within seconds, Chloe showed her cute face meowing for the special treat. Susanne still has no idea where she was hiding, but she was relieved that the mystery had been solved. What a silly kitty!
After that whole ordeal, they finally got on the road. Unfortunately, they quickly realized that they were going nowhere fast. First of all, it was raining. Second of all, it was the middle of rush hour in Northern Virginia. Luckily, they got to the airport on time. It was much easier for Susanne to navigate through the airport now that she had extra hands. They had a total of twelve bags to divvy out between four people. Six of them belonged to Paxton along with a car seat and stroller. She set it up so that each person had one of Paxton's bags as a carry-on and some of them even had to double up. He definitely required an entourage!
The flight was only about an hour and a half. This was much better than driving close to nine hours to get to Boston. Paxton did well as always. He got to snuggle with his daddy the whole way there.
Once they landed, they were all looking forward to a blueberry beer from Boston Beer Works. They had heard about this delicous treat through Uncle Looney and they were all very intrigued. Susanne had wanted to try one on her trip up to Boston last week, but thought that people might have frowned upon a single woman with a child sitting at a restaurant having a beer at 7:30 in the morning. This was a much better set up. The beer was extremely delicious. It was so tasty that even Gigi had an entire beer by herself, which was unheard of since she was a wine connoisseur and she didn't like beer.
They caught a taxi to the place that they were staying. Susanne was constantly shocked by the difference in price that each cab driver charged for the SAME drive. It must just be the way of the world.
Once everyone got settled in, Paxton needed to be started on his feeding right away. He always got a little off schedule when they were traveling. In the process of trying to get him back on track, things didn't go so smoothly. The first mistake was hooking him up while he was still in his stroller. The second mistake was trying to move him to his pack and play once it was set up so he could take a nap while he was finishing his feeding. The end result was his line got caught on the stroller in the middle of the transition and his G-tube came out. This was the first time that this had happened since the surgery. Susanne had been prepped that this was bound to happen just like the NG tube, but most of the time it was from the actual patient pulling it out. Susanne had only been verbally told what to do in these situations. She initially panicked, but quickly realized that she had it under control as long as she just relaxed and thought logically. Scott placed his hand over the opening while Susanne got a specific type of tube to place in the hole to keep it patent. Once she secured that, she was able to focus on replacing the MIC-KEY button. She went through a handful of syringes to try to find one that was small enough to fit into the balloon valve to be able to deflate the balloon at the end of the feeding tube. Finally, the appropriate syringe was located. She was able to empty the balloon, guide the MIC-KEY button back into the hole, and refill the balloon to hold it in place. Everyone was in a state of shock. Susanne remembered the first time she had to replace the NG tube, which was scary, but this was way worse. Scott and Susanne felt good about how the button looked after it had been replaced, but they wanted to make sure there had been no damage to the hole and that it looked secure. They weren't expecting to have to go to the hospital today, but with Paxton they knew to always expect the unexpected.
Luckily, they were seen right away. The doctor thought that all looked good. After all was said and done, everyone felt like they could go for another blueberry beer.
Susanne and Scott were hoping that the rest of the evening was uneventful. They did have a BIG week ahead of them and they needed as much fuel as possible to get them through.
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