Tube Change

Today's tube change was successful. After it was completed I found out they did not give him any extra sedation drugs which really surprised me. After the change took place they also switched him back to the oscillator vent in preparation for the transfer to Primary's. It took him two hours and a few tweaks on the settings to finally get him to saturate in the 90's. His CO2 level at one point was 148, it should be in the 40's and 50's although we don't freak out too much until its in the 70's these days. Even on the new vent he is requiring at least 60% oxygen on his FIO2.

The plan now is to figure out what settings on this vent will keep him the most stable. On Monday he will have another echo done and if that is still left to right the tentative plan is to transfer him to Primary's on Tuesday to the CATH lab. The general consensus is that the current status quo is not getting Aaron anywhere other than backwards so although he is not where we would like him to be, we need to press on.

Aaron's liver has significantly increased in size and we are very worried it has started to shut down. Until we know for sure we again are moving forward and will deal with that when we have to. Another concern is that we are not sure he will be able to tolerate the heart cath but again, we are moving forward. Our last concern and probably biggest concern is that Aaron's chronic pulmonary hypertension may now be primary pulmonary hypertension. If that is the case then we will have to make the decision when to stop life support as he will not be able to recover from that. We will know more when he goes to the cath lab, until then Forward We Go....