It's a New Day

By the time that I touched base with Jonah's nurse this morning, several things were already checked off of his daily "to do" list. The catheter in Jonah's bladder was taken out...and he had already peed twice on his nurse Julie; both of his chest tubes were pulled; and he had already started his first trial of the day to again evaluate his readiness for having the breathing tube removed. It was when we arrived at the hospital today that we discovered something that was definitely contributing to Jonah's labored breathing yesterday. The chest tubes had not been draining much fluid for the last couple of days and the team firmly believes in doing away with the invasive things that are no longer needed as soon as possible. When we were getting settled in for our visit, we learned that when the tubes were pulled a pretty significant amount of fluid followed...a "gush" as Dr. VanBergen and Julie described. It turns out the chest tubes were clotted somewhere near where they entered the lung space and the chest xray did not clearly show this fluid in the bases of Jonah's lungs. After this happened another chest xray was taken and showed a much better picture. Also, Jonah was breathing more comfortably...and the quality of his breaths greatly improved.
As a result, the CPAP trials Jonah had failed yesterday were a walk in the park today.

The rest of the day today was great! Jonah was actually able to be swaddled like any 2 week old baby should as he had no more tubes or drains connected to him from the chest down. He was also much more awake and energetic in a way that was almost playful instead of irritated as had been the case the last few days. We left this evening after listening in on rounds and hearing the plan for tomorrow...the big task- getting rid of the breathing tube!! They are thinking this will likely be done by 10am. We will be able to see his face again, we will hear him cry again, and hopefully he will take a pacifier:) As with everything up until this point, removing the tube can come with its fair share of challenges. The first 24-48 hours of breathing on his own could give Jonah a run for his money, but the way he has been managing things so far, we think he will do just fine!