We busted out!  But shhhh.  They waffled on it all morning so I'm afraid to draw attention back to him.  

After five days of great care, Ander looked one thousand times better than when he arrived.  We discovered that he had something called adenovirus.  It's no biggie, unless you have a cardiac condition.  Most kids actually have at least one adenovirus infection by the time they're 10, usually with mild symptoms.  In Ander's case it was a beast.  Our hospital stay was longer than normal for dehydration because they have to give half the amount of fluid they normally would so it wouldn't stress his heart.  Because he doesn't want to drink anything and because he's still having "tummy troubles," the lesser amount of IV fluid was never able to get him out of the red.  But sitting around in a hospital for almost a week is proper torture for a four-year-old.  We knew if he was home he would likely eat and drink more and be a heck of a lot happier.  We promised we would push water like it was our job and they finally agreed to let us go.  Whew.

Austin and I got a bit of a reality check with this one.  We've always prided ourselves on not treating Ander differently because of his heart condition.  We're germ conscious because I'm terrified of public restrooms, but we've never been crazy about germs or avoided public situations for fear of them being extra dangerous for Ander.  Five days because of one little virus is a mere one day less than his hospital stay for one of his heart surgeries.  That said, I can't say we'll suddenly become crazy careful or do much anything differently in the future.  There's a fine line between protecting your child and creating an environment of fear.  Like all things in parenting, it's something that we'll have to figure out as we go.

But for now, it's a rainy weekend and we are looking forward to a whole lot of snuggling and football watching.  Missing out on watching the Superbowl (okay, Superbowl commercials) on the 75 inch TV is perhaps the only thing we'll miss about not staying longer!