3pm az time
Zach is off the vent but he is not breathing as well as they had hoped. He is on a scuba looking mask that does stress his heart. They are trying to medicate the heart for now. They would rather not put him back on the vent because it can hurt his trachea (airway). The goal is to have him on this setup until tomorrow and then reevaluate. This is a step forward albeit a rocky, scary step.
6:30pm az time
Zachary is doing better. They found the right cocktail of drugs to help him sleep but breathe. CVICU docs want to maintain his settings tonight. If he doesn't cooperate they will put him back on the vent or do a tracheotomy. (Neither is ideal.). The docs have ran multiple tests on his blood to check oxygen profusion and it is better than this morning when Zachary was on the vent so he is improving.
The issue is that now he has to breathe on his own. When he gets mad, he holds his breath until he is a dark purple. He has had multiple episodes of this since being off the vent. The nurse activated the beeper that sounds off 4x a second. The higher the tone of the beep, implies higher blood oxygen saturation. The lower the tone of the beep, the lower his saturation.
As I type this, his sats just dropped to the 30s. He needs to be 75-90%.
...
Ok, now they are in the 60s.
Docs need divine wisdom because they are not sure if he is having issues because of his airway or his heart.
Here is a pic of the scuba mask.
Temper tantrum? :) He must be a redhead! ;)
ReplyDeleteSure are praying for you guys and your darling little fellow!