The start of the fifth week and we are making small steps in the right direction. We were eager to see how Brendan did on the vent weaning yesterday, but we were skeptical that they would be ready to extubate today. We are so excited for that tube to come out, but we can’t rush him.
He is still taking all of his breaths on his own, but when the pressure settings are turned down he doesn’t take deep enough breaths to sustain his oxygen saturation so he starts to breath very rapidly and his heart rate goes too high.
The respiratory therapist is going to keep working with him to help strengthen his diaphragm and push him to breath more deeply. It could be a few more days on the vent while he gets some more training.
He still has pretty wet lungs as well, so they are increasing the Lasix to help him try to get rid of it. The cardiologist is very happy with how his heart is doing and does not think the fluid in his lungs is still related to his heart defect. They are very pleased with how the band is working and really liked what they saw on the echocardiogram. They are going to stop the Milrinone today.
He still has general edema that is slowly going away as well. If the Lasix works, then the lungs should dry out more and he will have a better chance of getting off the ventilator.
He is up to 10cc of milk every 3 hours now and he is tolerating it well.

Brendan is wrapped up like a burrito

This is all we can do to comfort him and let him know we are there.

We replaced the giant fish tank in the living room with fish-themed baby things! I am sure the babies would have loved the real tank too.

Trevor likes to have his picture taken about as much as his dad does.

Monkey pants!