Sammy went home yesterday!  After 4.5 weeks of a coma, then “emerging,” and then in-patient therapy here in DSM, he went home.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  I heard doctors tell us not to get our hopes up, not to expect rapid recovery, to keep expectations low.

When this all happened, the doctors told Uncle D that Sam would be in a coma anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months.  I saw Uncle D yesterday as we loaded his car with all of Sam’s things, and he said, “can you believe this?  It’s like a movie ending.  Not even 5 weeks ago I was told that my son would probably need 8 weeks to wake up, and right now, he’s being discharged.  I thought to myself back then, ‘I can wait 60 days to see my son’s eyes again,’ but here we are.  And when this all happened, I was told to not hope for much, and all I hoped for was for my son to be able to communicate with me again, in some way, even if it was minimal for the rest of his life.”

WOW.

As Hottie and I walked back to our car, I cried.  I cried because as hopeful as I was (I NEVER thought for a minute that Sammy wouldn’t fully recover), I did not expect to be sending him home so soon.  I was ready for 8 weeks of “sleeping.”  I was ready for lots of in-patient therapy (we were told “months”).  I was ready for a very long road.  I wasn’t ready for such a quick turn-around, and neither were his therapists.  As we said our goodbyes in Sam’s room, I asked one of his therapists, “is this normal?”  She said no.  She said that everyone is stunned by how quickly he recovered and that, “his young age is on his side.”

Sam truly is… amazing!  He defied every single odd when it came to coming down with FES in the first place, and he defied all the odds in his lightning-fast recovery.  My cousin posted on FB, “Can everyone please say, ‘BEST CASE SCENARIO?'”  But this is better than the best case scenario.  Although there is work to be done to get all of Sam’s functions “back to normal,” the  best case scenario told us months before we’d see much improvement at all, and that the road would be very long.  All things considered, the road has been quite short so far, and the road ahead will be much more pleasant than we were told it would be.

My Marathons for Sammy is complete – he’s home!  I am finishing out this week and I owe him 0.3 miles to complete 4 marathons for him (why I didn’t finish those this morning… ugh!  I had no idea!).  I ran 104.8 miles in the time it took him to recover.  I’m so glad he cut this challenge short for me  🙂