Day 11 in the hospital

September 30, 2012

After being extubated Ameir seemed to be somewhat stable.  He was starting to be weaned off high flow oxygen back to the nasal cannula and oxygen he was on at home.  While we were here I asked for another ENT consult due to the difficulty with intubating Ameir.  It was decided he likely needed a tracheostomy to secure an airway because we live 2 hours away from U of M and our local hospital is not equipped to intubate an infant with a critical airway.  ENT was planning on doing a bronchoscope to completely evaluate Ameir's airway and if it was a simple issue he would have that fixed rather than jumping straight to the trach.  While he was already under anesthesia we planned to get his feeding tube put in and his heel cord lengthened.

Tonight Ameir had a really bad night.  He was trying to breathe but was struggling like he was the day he was admitted.  Everyone (at least 15 people) including Anesthesia and ENT came rushing into the room to reintubate Ameir and the respiratory therapist we had that night knew Ameir well from the NICU suggested trying CPAP before another bedside intubation that was going to be extremely difficult.  IT WORKED he was able to breathe and his CO2 levels were coming back closer to normal.  Surgery for tomorrow October 1st was cancelled until he could be stabilized.