Friday, March 27, 2009

True Story

when we arrived today, Nora's medical team said that she'd be extubated later this afternoon b/c she didn't need the ventilator anymore--yay.  We talked to the surgical team and they weren't convinced that Ryan was ready to be off the ventilator--I was OK with that, he's been thru enough, let's wait till he's clearly ready.   Brown, a friend from church, came and prayed for the babies this morning.
At lunchtime, I said to John that I thought it'd be cool if they could both come off their ventilators at the same time.  John said "well, that's not going to happen." When we got back from lunch, Nora was again complaining about being on the ventilator--her nurse called the docs to tell them she was ready and they said it would be done at 2pm.  So, it's 2pm and all the docs and respiratory therapist and a few nurses gather around Nora, getting ready to pull her vent tube to extubate her.  All of a sudden, Ryan's alarms start going off--his oxygen sats are down to 40%.  i'm freaking out.  his nurse starts to assess him to find out why he's not getting enough oxygen suddenly---then I hear "he's extubated!"  The docs leave Nora before she can be extubated and go to Ryan.  Turns out, he literally slimed (or is it slimmed?  what's the past tense of the verb "to slime?") the tube out of his mouth--the tape holding it in place got too loose from his mouth gunk and it just came right out.  They were paging the surgery staff to find out what to do and one of the neonatologists suggested they just see what he does without the ventilator since he was breathing on his own at that point.  So, they put a cannula on him and get him settled in and see what he does.  First he starts having a bit of trouble and one of the surgeons says that he won't be able to hold his own on the cannula.  Another surgeon says that he might be able to do it-he'll let us know within the first hour or so, she says.

Then, they turn to Nora, get her extubated at about 2:30 this afternoon--it takes her a while to be happy about it, but she finally is.
We left at 4ish-Ryan's blood gas was fine after being off the vent for an hour. both were still doing OK on their cannulas.  I called at 6pm and Nora was breathing room air, just using the cannula for air flow into her nose.  Ryan was doing fine on minimal oxygen and was comfortable still breathing on the cannula.  I called at 11pm and there haven't been any changes still.

So, that's the story.  Even though they've been separated for 5 weeks, they are most certainly twins.  what are the odds that Ryan's tube would literally fall out the exact moment they were taking Nora's out?  anyway, we'll see how Ryan does--it's clear that he may tucker out and need either the CPAP or the ventilator again.

Other news is that they stopped Ryan's feeds at about 1AM in the morning since he spit up a bit--they'll retry milk in a few days and see how he does.  if he still has trouble, they might try a pre-digested formula to see if he'll do better on that.

4 comments:

  1. WOW... amazing. Love, love, love to you and those beautiful babies.

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  2. Yay Ryan!
    Yay Nora!

    :) :) :)

    Jody

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  3. Jess,

    Just wondering if there's any way that Ryan and Nora can be put in the same crib? I know it would be difficult with all the monitors, but I recall a story about preemie twins at Spectrum in GR who thrived once they were back together.

    Jody

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  4. These darling babies are amazing and so are their parents. The pictures were beautiful and priceless. I hope to see these precious gifts soon. With prayers and love, Aunt Rachel

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