Failed Extubation

It was a pretty uneventful weekend. They stopped Lily's paralytic on Friday and she started moving and opening her eyes. It was so good to see her eyes after over 2 weeks! They talked about extubating on Sunday, but the ICU doctor decided it was best to wait one more day. Yesterday, Monday, they decided she was ready. They had cut back on her sedation meds and her vent settings overnight. They also did a trial run with the vent settings to see how she would do without the vent support and she passed the trial. 

The ICU team was ready around noon. When they pulled the tube out she seemd ok for a second, but then her heart rate started dropping.. and dropping, and she started looking bluish. All of a sudden there were 10 people in the room and they were bagging her and preparing to reintubate. Gah. It was the scariest moment of my life I think. They used a special instrument with a camera while they were reintubating to see if they could see an obstruction or anything else concerning. Everything looked good, and the team decided she must have been too sedated and too weak still. Once she was intubated again, her vitals quickly stabilized and she appeared comfortable. 

The ICU doctor and her surgeon, Dr Z, both agreed that we should work on decreasing her sedation and getting her stronger before attempting to extubate again. Unfortunately, she started having withdrawal symptoms last night from when they cut the meds down the night before. So they had to increase her sedation meds again this morning. Her nurse said it's going to be a fine balance between keeping her comfortable and getting her ready for extubation. Her vent settings are very low though, so that's good. They plan on letting her rest today, and will talk tomorrow about possibly extubating or maybe waiting until Thursday.

This is the very brief summary of events, haha. I might blog about it in more detail some other day, but it's still very overwhelming and exhausting to even think about. It was.. awful. 

We've been discussing our plans for the remainder of Lily's time in Boston. We've decided to all go home next week after her esophagram on the 11th. So we will get another rental car and drive home on the 12th and 13th. Then Joe will fly back out here the following week, maybe the 17th. I'll stay home with the other two girls and work on the weekends. Hopefully when Lily is ready to be discharged, I can fly out here as well for a few days and then Joe, Lily, and I will fly home while family watches Cora and Rose. 

That's all for now I guess. Love you all,

Heidi