Sunday Family Visit

Day 13 - Hospital Stay
Day 8 - Intubated

Today we all visited Logan at the hospital. Logan was exercising his lungs at the time, breathing on his own. He opened his eyes briefly when we were there. Either he heard all of us and wanted to tell us that he heard us, or we're just too noisy, especially when Aidan was there. Aidan was excited to see Logan. He didn't really know what was going on, except that Logan is sick and he's at the hospital. He didn't seem to be scared of all the tubes and monitor.

Logan was stable last night and was doing well. They will have him breathe on his own for as long as he could today, so that he could exercise his lungs and won't get too dependent on the machine. The nurses will check his blood gas every 4 hours to make sure he is taking in enough oxygen. As always, his breathing pattern is fine when he's awake. It's when he's sleeping that his breathing becomes erratic and shallow. Let's hope through a few days of exercise that he will get used to breathin again, and won't get lazy.

We talked some more with the Chief about the trach and the g-tube. She demonstrated how it all works with a baby doll, with a fake trach and g-tube. With the trach, it seems like when Logan is awake, it doesn't need to be attached to a ventilator. It's when he's sleeping that he might need some extra help. He should still be able to drink and eat and take a bath. But definitely not going out for a swim. If he gets a cold, then we need a suction machine to suction his mucous through the trach. Last time he got a cold, he couldn't breathe. The Chief said the g-tube might be a good idea, especially when she heard that we're assisting his feeding by squeezing the bottle. She's concerned that Logan might aspirate. It's a real technique to coordinate his sucking and my squeezing, so that he won't choke. With the g-tube, he can still drink from the bottle, but when he gets tired, we can feed thim through the tube directly into his tummy.

The Chief said that she's not recommending the trach at the moment. She wants to see how Logan does for the next couple of days before making a formal recommendation. Maybe with time, Logan would only need a cpap, and not actually get a trach and a ventilator. That would be the best case scenario. Fortunately, both the trach and the g-tube are reversible procedures. If he doesn't need that when he gets older and stronger, the wounds will heal eventually.

Bringing Aidan to the hospital is always a challenge. He has a 3-year-old attention span and we need to really keep him happy. We brought his Thomas laptop, plus my laptop to hold his attention. Even with that, he went in and out of the room and was too excited with the automatic door. Of course he figured out which button to push to get the door open as well. Overall, he did fine. This is his second visit to the hospital and I guess he's used to us tell him what not to do.