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| Format: 8.5 x 11 |
| Category: Events / Misc. Events A to M |
| Notes |
| The Lady Bug Came to Help Saturday, March 6, 1999 (Day 24) the change was made, Dylon was back on the conventional ventilator. He had a few problems during the night and the doctors decided it was because they had weaned him as low as they could on the oscillator and he would now do better on the conventional. Also he was needing to be suctioned out and while on the oscillator an attending or fellow doctor has to be present when you break the seal. So it was more practical for him to be on the conventional where nurses or respiratory therapist could suction him out at any given time. When they made the switch they stop giving Dylon the vecuronium, they wanted to see how long it would take for him to begin moving again. Later that night we saw one of his chest tubes started leaking again. The doctors had talked about if this happened he would have to go back on the oscillator. After a lot of discussion they decided to wait and see if he would continue to do ok and if so he could stay on the conventional, which he did. The next few days were spent adjusting the ventilator trying to find just the right settings for Dylon. The vecuronium was started again, because his peep got back up over ten. Also a continuous EEG was started because we began suspecting seizures. We were glad to find out the next day that the EEG showed no seizure activity. Tuesday, March 9, 1999 (Day 27) the doctors took out the third chest tube. His ventilator settings were low enough that the vecuronium was stopped and physical therapy was started. Dylon’s ventilator was also changed over to volume support, which is a very big weaning step. His peep was down to 8 that evening. Thursday, March 11, 1999 (Day 29) the fourth and last chest tube was shut off to water seal, and would probably come out the next day. The doctors decided he was doing so well it was time to take out his arterial line and they weaned down his sedation medicine, and stopped the Lasix. His peep was down to six! Friday, March 12, 1999 (Day 30) the fourth chest tube was removed. They weaned his sedation medicine more and started him a steroid because he was to be extubated the next day. Saturday, March 13, 1999 (Day 31) the big day! Dr. Green extubated Dylon at 10 o’clock in the morning. He was placed on an oxygen mask at 50%. I got to hold him for the first time in 27 days! He was so happy, we played his tape for him and he was smiling. But later that evening his pulse ox started dropping to 88 & 89. Respiratory did every treatment they knew to do and nothing was helping, so Dr. Green decided he needed to be put on BiPap. With in about an hour Dr. Green said that Dylon was still struggling so he wanted to put him back on the ventilator. If we got him back on in time then hopefully we would not loose any ground and he could go back on with the same settings he came off on. They weaned his sedation again because they felt some of the reason he did not make it was he was still heavily sedated. |