Today marks the beginning of our 4th week here. The last 21 days have been long and hard. We have experienced every emotion imaginable. As we look forward, we are still unsure what the future holds for us. Kade will let us know the path his recovery will take. All we know is that we are in it for the long haul, and everyone who has rallied around us has made it easier to get through these days.
As of now, we are still on track for extubation (getting off of the ventilator) today . They are waiting for labs to comeback just to make sure that levels are where they should be. Kade continues to spike fevers, but then they go away almost as fast as the come. They will not be sending anymore cultures today, since they just sent some yesterday, and nothing has grown. Fever can come from a multitude of things, so they are just keeping an eye on it and treating with Tylenol when necessary.
Kade still does not like to give up veins! Yesterday they looked for a good vein to put a PICC line in, but no luck. His Central line works well, but it would have been nice to have a different access point since he is now off of the catheter. They will make do with what they have.
In preparation for extubation, all sedation meds will be turned off, but piggy backed by another medicine that is short acting. We they are ready to pull the breathing tube out, they will turn the med off and let Kade wake up. They need him be awake so he will remember to breathe on his own. Everyone is pretty confident that he will do fine. He already breathes over what the ventilator is set at, and has for many days now. Kade will be started on Methadone after he is breathing on his own to help with withdrawal, it also lasts a little longer than the current pain meds he is on.
The next couple of days will be the calm before the storm. We pray that his little body does well as it is required to breathe on it's own, and that side effects of being taken off of pain medicine are minimal so that he may continue to concentrate on healing his belly and breathing on his own.
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I pray that everything goes well today for Kade and he breathes on his own with no problems. I hope you can hold him again real soon. I'm sure he needs to feel his mommy's hugs. Thanks again for keeping us all updated. Just know you have many people praying for you guys. Take care.
ReplyDeleteRobin
We are all praying for Kade and hope that everything goes the way it is supposed too!!!
ReplyDeleteKade is very lucky to have such good parents who is watching over him day and night.
Take care and keep the updates going, we all like to read them.
God Bless!!
Kristy