Maybe???

The past 36 hours were a bit rough for us, both him and me.

Yesterday morning, we turned his PEEP back to 10, our home settings.  And he said, "more oxygen, please, lots more!"  Not exactly what we were hoping for.

In fact, by last night, the question wasn't could we use our home ventilator, it was can he stay on a PEEP of 10, or did we need to increase it again.  The decision was made that if he had to go above 60% FiO2 (amount of oxygen bleed in) for more than 15-30 minutes, we would have to go up.

I got up this morning and was pleased to see he was still on 10, but only by the skin of his teeth.  He'd been on 60% all night.

By mid-day, he was on 80%, and still struggling to maintain 85% saturation rate.  For those who might not know, ideal is low FiO2 and high sat rates.  The sat rate is the amount of oxygen in his blood, while the FiO2 is the amount of oxygen needed to maintain good sats.

We did start some oral steroids this morning, but we also got him moving around.  He's been pretty stationary since we got here.  He hasn't wanted to move a whole lot, the bed is small, and it's just soft enough to make it hard to move around.  We turned him on his belly and patted his back until he fell asleep.

He slept for SIX hours!  And during that time, maintained sats in the mid to high 90's, even when we turned him down to 40% FiO2.  Once he woke up, and turned back over, they dipped a little bit, but only to the low 90's.

He's back to singing to us, and as soon as they get around to evening rounds, we'll try to make the jump to his ventilator.  NOW he seems ready.  Yesterday, there was no way.

But as often happens in a PICU or emergency department, there are other more pressing needs.  They've had quite a number of admits, and frankly, Aaron's probably the least sick of any kid in here right now.  In fact, if it wasn't for needing a vent that can only be used in an ICU, he wouldn't be in the unit.  So we'll have to see what happens when.  I suppose it's possible that we won't make it until tomorrow morning.  But at least it's because of other outside challenges, and not because he can't handle it.

And on that note, please keep the other families in here in your prayers, too.  There are a lot of kiddos in here, some very little ones.  And not all of them are going to have as good an outcome as we are.  It's going to be a really difficult time for some families.

So keep your fingers crossed and pray that we can make this jump.  We've got things to do, places to go, and people to see.  Which are all kinda hard to do from this little room we've been calling "home."

 I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'. ~Henry Moore