Off ventilator

As of right now: 9:33pm




J.

Extubation...

8:59pm
Abi is being extubated at this very moment. If everything goes well, we should be able to see her soon, maybe in 20 minutes.
We thought it will not happen today, firstly because of the fluids building in the lungs and secondly because of her saturation that suddenly dropped down to low 80's from high 90's. The nurses couldn't figure out what caused a sudden saturation drop. We prayed it wasn't a stepback for Abi to get exchubated today. After a chest x-ray, they found out the breathing tube was lower than it should. After adjusting the tube, Abi's sats went right back to 90's. :)
This didn't have an influence on the decition to remove the tube.

She was so sweet today. We spent over 6 hours with her. She slept and rested for the most part. When she woke up, she would wiggle and move a lot. It's easy to imagine how uncomfortable this poor girl is. When she cries or caugths, we can't hear anything because of the tubes in her mouth. We can just tell by her facial expressions... It's so sad to see this... especially when we can't pick her and cuddle. I'm not even mentioning the thirst and hunger! When the nurse put a little sponge into her mouth soaked with destilated water to clean the inside of her mouth, she was ready to eat it!! 
Hopefully, after 4 hours from extubation she will be able to get some milk!

Thank you for carying and praying 4 Abi!

Thoughts At The Bedside

1.55pm

We've been at Abi's bed for the past couple hours. She wakes up very often, keeps her eyes open and looks at us. Then she's getting impatient and looks like she would like to say something; her eyes are unbelievable; they speak for her.

Due to her airways being swallen they had to postpone extubating her until this evening. She's on Decadrone, a steroid that will get the swelling healed. They will check again and if everything goes well she will be extubated tonight. If there are no stepbakcs we will try feeding her a bottle about 6-8 hours after taking her off of the ventilator. If she takes the bottle and tolerates the food they won't put the feeding tube in!!!! This would be great since this will be one of the things keeping us in the hospital once she's out of the CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit).

The next steps will be to remove the central line that is in her neck, removing the access line that is going from her tummy to the inside of her left atrium and pulling out the last chest tube that is draining the fluids from the heart area out.

If this goes fine and there are no stepbacks she should go to the stepdown unit and being there is mostly for the parents to learn carding for a child after open heart surgery. Since there are 2 classes we will need to take we are planning on starting as soon as possible, so on Monday morning we will take the 'how to care for a child after heart surgery' class and in the afternoon the CPR class. We have taken this one after Abi was born but we will take it again.

So we may be done with the classes before she settles down in the Step Down unit.

I just talked to the nurse and, she didn't want me to get too excited so she unwillingly said yes, but she did say yes when I said there was a very realistic chance we would be home next weekend!!! This would be best best case scenario, but we saw a couple of those this past week, didn't we! ;-)

Good Morning , I'm Breathing

6.12am

Just a short note. Abi did great last night. Her breathing test went well. Right now, even though she has the tube in her own breathing rate is in low/mid 40s- exactly where it should be. This is wonderful.

Right now she's sleeping after Versed since she was a bit active ;-) and moving around. This is good but not at this moment, since the ventilator tube can irritate her throat causing some swelling which could lead to some difficulties with breathing after taking the tube out.

Let's wait for more good news today!




Art


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Tube Still In But Breathing On Her Own

8.49pm

It's been 30 minutes now since the ventilator is not breathing for Abi and she's breathing on her own like a champ!!! The tube is still in since this is one of the tests but it seems like she will be off of it tomorrow morning.

She's doing great breathing on her own, much slower now than prior the surgery and the saturation is much much better; it's in high 90s.




Art


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She's Such A Fighter

5.44pm

Abi's still on track ahead of the schedule but it seems like the ventilator will stay in overnight. When Asia and I came over and started talking around her and to her she got really excited, started moving a lot and opening her eyes. It's great, but before they remove the ventilator they need to do couple tests with turning it off first. She was too active before the test and they had to give her some sedatives and now she's sleeping so they can't do the test. Since it's getting late and it's better to have more people around when taking a child off of the ventilator they will do couple tests overnight but will try taking her off tomorrow morning. Still way ahead of schedule as the surgeon said this aftenoon when we talked to him.

They took her off of dopamine a d she's doing great. Lowered her breathing rate and now we actually see her breathing on her own as well.

Thank you all for reading, praying and being with us through this difficult time!!!




Art and J.


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Are you ready for this?!

11.31am

I'm sitting at Abi's bed right now. Ok are you all ready for this?! They took her off both medicine making her pee (Diuril and Lasix)!!! They took her off the sedatives (Versed)!!! They TOOK OUT 2 CHEST TUBES!!!! The bleeding in the heart area is that minimal. And ..... They are planning on waking her up slowly to ...... Try to take her off the ventilator TODAY if she's doing as she's doing. I was told she's a little star here doing better than expected and than normaly kids do!

Everything else is in the norm.
Below is Jackie, the awesome nurse who prayed for her during the surgery and who keeps on checking on Abi.







More awesome news soon.

Art


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