Saturday in the PICU was a good one. Bentley showed more promise on her CPAP trial during the night. Shortly after Lindsay arrived the team came through on morning rounds and gave the “ok” to extubate (remove breathing tube). Through a little understandable apprehension, we agreed and prepared to get underway. Bentley was extubated around mid morning. Precious thing, I think she was pretty stunned. We got her sitting up and managed to get a few brief sounds out of her. The mid-day was spent trying to get her up and moving, forcing her to expand her lungs and breath deeper. Although everyone wanted us to try and get Bentley to cough, she coughs for no one. Lindsay and I were both able to hold Bentley sitting up in a chair for a little while. She was pitiful and just wanted to go to sleep. The problem with sleep was that she would reduce the depth of her breaths and her O2 sat would drop. Over the next few hours we were forced to increase her oxygen % and started to realize further intervention was needed. A cough assist device was attempted, once, Bentley was not a fan and proved this effort would be futile. Some aggressive chest PT was initiated, which she loves. Her love for this exercise was found in her fist stay at Children’s a few years ago. Eventually, it was determined we needed to try a bipap mask to help provide a forceful assistance to her breaths and recruit some bronchioles and alveoli to further expand in her left lung. She was hooked up on bipap around 5pm and has shown promising results since. She will remain on the bipap through the night and we will see if she can tolerate going back to a high flow nasal cannula on Sunday.
A world of improvement since Tuesday.
Bentley is very worn out, that is obvious. Her little body is totally spent. Tonight I am praying for rejuvenation through these wealthy breaths. We will work on her hard Sunday to be a little more active and get some of her spunk back. If Bentley is able to show resilience and tolerate reduced breathing assistance she should move to a lower level of care. We’ll let you know what happens. Thank you for the continued prayers and support. Again, lot’s of kids and lots of families in need of them as well. Good night.
A world of improvement since Tuesday.
Bentley is very worn out, that is obvious. Her little body is totally spent. Tonight I am praying for rejuvenation through these wealthy breaths. We will work on her hard Sunday to be a little more active and get some of her spunk back. If Bentley is able to show resilience and tolerate reduced breathing assistance she should move to a lower level of care. We’ll let you know what happens. Thank you for the continued prayers and support. Again, lot’s of kids and lots of families in need of them as well. Good night.
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