The biggest concern after the surgery is Noah's breathing. The doctors prepared us yesterday for the possibility that they would not take Noah of the ventilator after surgery and send him back up the the PICU. We were fine with this scenario because it would give his little body a chance to heal before it had to concentrate on breathing again. And we love the nurses in the PICU. =)
We checked in on him after surgery and he was still pretty out of it from the anesthesia. We left to grab some dinner and to check into the hotel, anticipating that he would sleep most of the time we were gone. Turns out that Noah had other things in mind... he woke up after we left and started breathing on top of the ventilator, which means he was breathing better on his own. He hates having the breathing tube down his throat, so I think he was saying, "I'm ready! I'm ready!" The doctors started weaning him off the ventilator and tried to extubate him. At which point Noah said, "Just kidding! I'm not ready!" He had a lot of difficulty getting deep enough breaths to maintain the oxygen levels he needed ... so back on to the ventilator he went.
Because of all that drama, the doctors were less than optimistic this morning about his ability to come off the ventilator today... and started talking about all sorts of unpleasantness if he couldn't breathe on his own that I won't go into. Fortunately, the second attempt at his extubation went smoothly and he is breathing like a champ. They have him on a BiPAP machine (very similar to what people use who have severe sleep apnea) to make the transition off the ventilator a little easier. I am extremely relieved that he is off the ventilator...please pray that he continues to breathe well on his own and keep his airway clear.
They are not going to feed him through his g-tube until tomorrow at the earliest... giving him the chance to focus on breathing today before adding a new challenge to the mix.
1 comment:
So glad things went well!
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