Extubated!

He's off the vent!

I checked on him about 6:30 this morning and the night nurse said he was doing pretty decently, definitely showing signs of waking up.

I checked again around 10 and the day nurse said he was showing more respiratory drive.

I got in before noon and they'd weaned his ventilator down to 30 breaths. Shortly thereafter, they moved it to 25.

Our RT (seen in the video below) said she'd get him off the vent by the evening.
Day nurse said the same thing.

A couple of hours later, day nurse asked RT to find the NP to see if they could wean his settings again. RT said she'd go "tell them we're weaning." Not ask- TELL. And that's why she's my favorite.

They turned him down to 20. I went out to pump and came back and they'd switched his vent to a mode that basically just monitored his breathing. If he went too long w/o a breath, it would give it to him, but that was it.

A few hours after that, RT came to check and saw that the vent hadn't had to give him very many breaths at all- mostly just when he was squirming and crying (times when a normal person would sort of hold their breath.)

Just before 7pm, they wheeled in a high humidity machine and the extubation was on.
Robbie was pretty pissed off about being messed with yet again, but he managed.

He's very raspy but is sleeping pretty peacefully right now.

One of his laparoscopy incision was leaking body fluid earlier. It freaked me right out, but they said it's normal. They think we opened it up a little bit messing with him. The site where his G Tube is was leaking just a teeny bit as well. They're keeping an eye on both.

No word yet on when we might head back to the now-old-to-us-but-is-still-new NICU, but I'm sort of hoping it's tomorrow.

It was pretty hectic in here earlier. They got a 24 weeker that is so small that even I'm amazed. I said a prayer for her when I heard them say the mom was being sectioned right then. I would appreciate it if you did the same. Even after all this time in the NICU, it amazes me that people go through all of this ALL. THE. TIME.
Thank goodness preemies are such little fighters.

--Trish