It's Done

Nathan is back from the OR and did great. I expected him to be in there for a while but about 35 minutes after he was taken in the ORL dr came out with papers in his hand. I assumed something had gone wrong and we needed to sign more consents. The papers he had were pictures from Nathan's airway, they were done. After over 3 years with the trach Nathan was, for the first time, breathing on his own.

Dr.N said that Nathan was going to have some "transitional" breathing where he wasn't breathing great and was going to sound bad but it was normal and would eventually go away. Neither of us was ready for what we saw - our little boy moving around and surviving without his trach. It was amazing, but our amazement didn't last long, he was struggling.

He is trying to cope with the effects of withdrawl from the sedatives and his new breathing. It's a lot for a little 3 year old to handle and he didn't like it. He was uncomfortable so they ordered a different medicine that doesn't slow down his breathing but makes him more comfortable. Until they got it we had to try to calm him down. At one point each Matt and I had to walk away, we were overwhelmed.

His breathing sounded awful and he was thrashing around in his attempt to get some relief. A 3 year old in withdrawl isn't fun. He needs to be suctioned through his nose until he figures out how to cough effectively, and he hates it. It takes 3 of us to hold him down, I hate it. But he is slowly getting better. It's going to be a long night, the nurse brought me a chair so I can sit right next to him all night but still get some sleep. For a little while today he even sat on my lap and watched a movie.

His voice isn't great but it's there. He said "mom" and that is good enough for me right now. The rest will come, but for now we are thrilled with where he is.