At about 6:00am the Respiratory Therapist (RT) decided to turn the ventilator setting down from 40 BPM (breaths per minute) to 30 BPM to see if Ethan would start taking some breaths on his own....and he was doing this when he was awake, but not so much when he was sleeping.
During rounds they decided to cut Ethan's sedation down and to cut his Fentanyl in half because, even though he could feel ice being touched to his belly, the epidural has seemed to be working to help with the pain. So, because of the decrease in the drugs Ethan was more alert today and stayed awake for longer periods of time. And then the RT saw that he was taking a lot of extra breaths on his own so she wanted to challenge him and turned it down so he could totally breath on his own, but if the machine detected that he stopped it would kick in at 15 BPM....and he did great all day breathing completely on his own and was still doing fine when we left this evening. His belly is also starting to shrink!
The PICU doctors and the Surgeon are all very pleased with Ethan's progress in the past 24-28 hours :)
Thanks to Gramma & Kelly for coming to visit and to Lucy & Lisa for taking me out for dinner!
Below is a picture of Ethan in his bed with all of the machines he is using...
Ventilator
8 Alaris Pumps (all of which are being used to give different meds)
1 Triple Baxter Pump (for TPN)
1 Monitor for his heart rate, O2 level and blood pressure
Good job Ethan!!! He is such a brave little man : ) I am so happy to hear he is doing so well...it must be because he has such a great mommy and daddy!! Love you all and will come for a visit soon.
ReplyDeleteHugs to mommy and daddy for being such loving wonderful parents and kudos to Ethan for being such a fighter!!!! Thank you both for sharing your experience, I only wish I could make things easier on you and especially little Ethan. He is so loved by so many and that will help him through this to come home again. xoxo
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