Chapter 15

A week later, Daniel was finally going through his last check up. Today would be decided if he could go home the next day or not. It had been 24 days since he had been admitted to the hospital and to his parents and family that had finally been enough.

If it was needed, they'd have to let him stay longer but hopefully they could take him home again. Three weeks had been long enough. It had been very stressful for the entire family and it was time to release that stress and have Daniel home again.

Dr. Smillie entered the room along with nurse Jenny. Hopefully it would be one of the last time they'd meet.

Richie and Sarah were waiting eagerly with Daniel. They both knew the progress Daniel had made, he still coughed but didn't stop breathing or vomited anymore. It seemed like a normal cough that would go away in another week or two.

"How's little Daniel today?" The doctor asked as they entered the room. By Daniel's bed, he picked up the chart and started reading it.
"Much better." Richie answered right away.
Dr. Smillie nodded. "Looks like it," he looked up at them, "everything seems alright. We just want to do the same tests as we did three weeks ago to compare and see how his lungs are doing right now."
"Another blood test and x-rays?" Sarah asked, already dreading a blood test.
"Yes, we'll have the test results by tomorrow morning and then we'll know if he can go home."
Richie looked at his. "You'll be ready to go home go buddy, we're more than ready to have you home again."

Sarah reached over and rubbed her husband's back, knowing his words were very true. The house had become very quiet without Daniel there.

Sarah picked up her little boy and held him in her arms, letting the doctor get ready to do the blood test as nurse Jenny went to schedule him for an x-ray.

As they had expected, Daniel cried when the needle pierced his skin to get to a vain but Sarah held him tight and close, comforting him as best as she could.

"That's all." Dr. Smillie said. "Now we'll have the results in the morning but I have a pretty good feeling he can go home in the morning."
"Great." Sarah and Richie both agreed.

Sarah held her son a little closer to comfort him as Richie got up and followed the doctor out of the room. He Just needed to ask a few questions about Daniel. Mostly about the fact that Daniel had to go through a hearing test, which made no sense at all.

Gladly, Sarah looked down at her son. So very happy that he was finally getting better enough to go home again. More than three weeks at the hospital was definitely enough, they all needed the comfort of home again, to be their own little family instead of part of a hospital.

She was sure that Daniel would recover at home too.

Richie's conversation with the doctor didn't last very long but he wasn't any happier with the doctors explanation at all. He didn't agree with the fact that Daniel wasn't responding to his name.

Instead, he knew from what Sarah had told him from her textbooks that every child had it's own speed of developing. Some were faster than others but that didn't mean there was anything wrong with Daniel at all. There was enough time for Daniel to develop on his own time, the weeks in the hospital couldn't have been beneficial for him at all.

At his age he should be learning to crawl but at the moment he was only learning to sit. Richie was very confident that Daniel would catch up as soon as he had recovered from whooping cough, it had had a big impact on him, Sarah thought so too, he knew that.

He didn't want to hear from any doctor that anything was wrong with his boy. Daniel was a perfect 7 month old little boy.