Tomorrow is coming

Tomorrow Thomas goes back to the OR for his doctor to take out the breathing tube and scope him in order to see how his cricoid is healing. Tomorrow marks two weeks he has been here at the hospital, after tomorrow, this will be the longest he has spent inpatient in his life. This is the longest I have gone without holding him (and definitely longer than anyone should have to go without holding their baby!). With so many of our thoughts on tomorrow, Thomas must have sensed us losing focus on the now because he had a pretty eventful day today. His oxygen levels kept dropping at times throughout the day, one time getting as low as 28%. They had to "bag" him, which means they put a manual resuscitator on him to push air into his lungs and to help him through his respiratory failure. He seemed to get very upset and his oxygen would drop anytime we would touch him. No one really knew why. He also spiked a pretty high fever, prompting the doctors to order some cultures on his urine and respiratory fluids to test for viruses/infections. We are still waiting on the results of those cultures, but he has finally settled in and his heart rate is back to normal as well as his temperature. He did his job of getting us back focused on the now!!

Even though we have been somewhat counting down to tomorrow, we know that it is only half of this journey. Tomorrow after they scope him to see what is going on in his airway, they will put the breathing tube back in and send him back up to the ICU. If all looks good, they will send him back up with a smaller tube and then plan to extubate (remove the tube) on Thursday in his ICU room. At this time, he will be off the morphine and versed (sedation drugs) and he can start to wake up. Unfortunately, that will be when we have to start a new challenge. Being on the sedation drugs for the amount of time that he was, he will go through some withdrawal. The doctors are hoping to minimize the symptoms using some other drugs to bridge the fall off, but there is only so much they can do. I can't imagine this is going to be a delightful process, but I am so excited to have him awake and be able to hold him and I am just cocky enough to think that my mommy-ness can help with some of those symptoms (and by mommy-ness, I don't just mean my incredible singing voice, but also my milk makers).