Called this morning and got some very positive news – both Willow and Stanley had good, stable nights and had been weaned off the ventilator quite a bit.
When we arrived at NICU today, everyone was quite excited as Stanley was going to come off the ventilator and onto CPAP. We knew this was a big step in the right direction but that it was not going to be easy for our son. At about 4pm, it was time – so Stanley was ‘extubated’ and transferred onto the CPAP machine. He coped relatively well but it was still not easy viewing for us parents.
So, today was now to prove one of those ‘roller coaster’ days. After such positive things this morning, Stanley was having a really tough time after coming off the ventilator. He had bradycardias every few minutes, and took a while to get his sats back up after each one. Later on, the docs agreed he should move onto ‘Bi Pap’. This is more of a middle ground between the ventilator and CPAP so he should be able to cope a bit better.
He still seemed to be struggling quite a bit, so I was sitting between my two children closely watching the monitors for a few hours.
Thankfully Willow was being relatively stable at this point, but still had the odd episode. This is really no fun at all, watching your baby son and daughter basically fight for their lives all day, every day.
The nurse was doing a great job looking after Stanley, but we had to wait until the handover to ask reassurance from the next nurse, who was on nightshift, that she would not leave him. She told us her husband is called Stanley, so she’d know how to handle him.
So we left after a very up-and-down day, feeling emotionally exhausted. And to top it off I had my annual unexplained bloody painful foot problem!
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